


Underneath Your Clothes

by Gwenpools_Aesthetic, profoundalpacakitten



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Awesome Howling Commandos, Bottom Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Comic-Con, Cosplay, Crack Treated Seriously, Depressed Steve Rogers, Fluff and Angst, Identity Porn, M/M, Magical Healing Cock, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Suicidal Thoughts, Top Bucky Barnes, costume porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:53:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27258985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gwenpools_Aesthetic/pseuds/Gwenpools_Aesthetic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/profoundalpacakitten/pseuds/profoundalpacakitten
Summary: The 21st Century is not everything Steve Rogers might have hoped for. He is alone. He is lonely. And he is depressed. With nothing left to lose, and memories to wallow in, he heads to HowlieCon DC - the biggest Howling Commandos convention in the country. There are panels! There is swag! There is a costume contest!! And that's where Steve sees him... a man known only as "The Captain." He's well known on the convention circuit as the best Captain America cosplayer out there.He's also Bucky Barnes.But when he won't break character to talk to Steve, what options does Steve have?A collaboration by Gwenpools_Aesthetic and profoundalpacakitten for Not Another Stucky Big Bang 2020.And yes... the title is a Shakira reference!!
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 182
Kudos: 310
Collections: Not Another Stucky Big Bang 2020





	1. You're a song written by the hands of God

Once Steve learned such a thing existed, it was as if the decision had been made for him. He was going. He _is_ going, and there is nothing that can stop him. 

It’s foolish. He knows it’s foolish. He hasn’t told Sam. Hasn’t told any of the Avengers, although he expects Natasha knows. She won’t ask, though, which is a kindness because he doesn’t want to deal with any questions. At best they’ll think he’s being vain. At worst, Sam might tell him it isn’t healthy, that he’s trying to hide in the past, that he’s using bad coping mechanisms. Maybe all of that is true... 

But really, he’s just curious.

And lonely.

And tired.

And yeah. Maybe he’s trying to go back to the past… not to hide, just to visit. Just for one afternoon. What can it possibly hurt? He misses Bucky. God, he misses him so much sometimes. There’s an ache in his chest, worse than any pain he’s ever felt… and he’s jumped out of a plane without a parachute. He’s been kicked in the gut by a Nazi. He’s been shot, multiple times. But this? This is worse than any of that. At least those times he knew what he had to do and he knew how to do it. Grit your teeth. Tighten the shield strap. Get the fuck back up on your feet.

This is nothing like that, and some mornings he seriously wonders if getting back up is even worth it. Maybe staying in bed is a better plan. Just stay in bed, in the dark, covers pulled up over his eyes, forever.

It isn’t like there is anyone who would miss him.

He’d woken up in the future and there hadn’t been time to think about anything. Fury gave him what felt like five minutes to deal with whatever the fuck the 21st century thought it was doing, and then he was being sent out to deal with goddamned aliens. And Norse gods. And superheroes, which shouldn’t be so weird because apparently he was one of them... It shouldn’t be real. How did the future turn out like one of those ridiculous pulps Bucky always read to him? He never understood what Bucky saw in those things - not then, and certainly not now. He didn’t want a future full of spies with high-tech gadgets and flying cars. He’d never wanted that.

He hadn’t said any of that to Bucky, of course. Bucky loved those pulps, and he loved Bucky. But when he’d lay his head on Bucky’s lap, feeling the press of coarse fabric against his cheek and the warmth of strong fingers combing through his hair, listening to Bucky read, he’d always tuned the words out, imagining instead a future where he and Bucky could hold hands in public, get married, live together without fear of being discovered. 

He clung to Bucky’s voice in those moments, the sound of it and not the words, smooth and deep, with his soft, familiar accent. He drank in Bucky’s presence. A moment to sit and be close, without anything else to worry about. A moment to imagine that it could always be like this, sprawled out on the small couch, barefoot and warm, Bucky touching him gently. Listening to Bucky talk was like coming home, no matter what was being said. 

Now… Now he doesn’t even know where home is. Is home here, in DC? He likes his neighborhood fine, even if the rent is astronomical. It isn’t that he doesn’t have the money; it’s just the principle of the thing. Regardless, the people are nice, aside from the fact that one of his neighbors is spying on him. Sam is here. Sam is neat. 

Maybe his home is in New York, where his home has always been. Is home that outlandishly tall building owned by Howard’s kid? Or is Brooklyn still home? Could Brooklyn ever be home without Bucky?

Could anywhere be home without Bucky?

The future is dumb. It’s loud, and bright, and everything smells bad, and bananas taste like shit.

Steve blinks back tears, pushing the intrusive thoughts away. He stares down at the drab green jacket in his hands. Bucky’s jacket. 

The whole alien nonsense had eventually been resolved, shwarma had been eaten, and the team had disassembled. Things had settled down for him. The clean-up crews had taken over. Life tried to go back to normal. And then people had started giving him recommendations. So many recommendations. All the things he _had_ to do, _had_ to read, _had_ to see, _had_ to experience. It was a lot. 

It’s too much.

He writes them all down; it feels like it’s a part of his job. He is Captain America, after all. There’s some responsibility there. He puts everything in his little notebook and then, at the end of the day, he looks each thing up to see what it’s about. He doesn’t do/read/see/experience everything - there isn’t time for that - but he at least memorizes a fact or two, just in case he ever runs into that person again. He knows what it feels like to think that nobody cares, that nobody’s listening, that nobody hears what you say or sees the real you inside. He’s just some kid from Brooklyn, but maybe - just by listening - he can make one person out there feel like they matter. Just one person. That’s enough. 

Shockingly, the person who’d told him hadn’t even realized who he was, and she hadn’t said that he _had_ to do anything.

He knows that people are aware of the Howling Commandos, and in more than just the “we learn about this in 7th grade history class” kind of way. The first time he’d seen Gabe’s face staring back at him from behind a storefront window in Harlem, he’d nearly choked on his overpriced but shockingly delicious coffee. He couldn’t believe it. And yet there it was, just exactly as he’d remembered it, printed on an army green t-shirt and proudly displayed in between two other shirts - one bright yellow, depicting a large, bald man with a goatee and excessive muscles, the other midnight blue and showing a woman with white hair, glowing eyes, and lightning streaming from her fingertips. 

It’s when he visits the exhibit at the Smithsonian that things really started to sink in. Yes, there are an uncomfortable number of people wearing Captain America gear; one woman even has a backpack that looks exactly like his shield and, sure, that’s kind of fun, but it’s everything else that he really notices. Pins depicting wolves in military uniforms (because _howling_ , and isn’t that clever). The hat that says, “Dum Dum Dugan for President.” The rainbow shirt that says “Jacques Dernier Loves Everyone.” Which… yeah. He really did. 

It makes Steve feel warm… almost happy… to know that his friends are still getting the respect and recognition they deserve. Everything Fury had shown him after he’d thawed out made Captain America out to be some sort of loner hero. Hell, they practically made it sound like he’d taken down Hitler on his own.

He’s never even seen Hitler. Not the real Hitler, anyway. The closest thing he’s ever seen was Angelo Guiliano, who Steve had fake-punched over two-hundred times from New York to California and everywhere in between.

The Howling Commandos… they were the ones who had really been out there. They were the ones who had been on the front lines. They had been captured, then _chose_ to go out with Steve despite everything they’d been through. They weren’t enhanced. They were just guys who cared. The Commandos were the true heroes, and he hated to think they never got the attention they deserved. 

So he goes to the exhibit, and then he goes again. And again. And again.

It’s not that he’s hiding in the past. He’s not. He knows he can’t go back. He wouldn’t want to. It’s just… he’s all alone. Jesus, he’s been alone for so long, and now… after seeing Bucky… after Bucky pulled him out of the river… saw him and didn’t recognize him… After Bucky left him. Alone. Again. And then he hid so well that it was obvious he didn’t want Steve to find him… 

Steve can’t help but consider that maybe it’s his destiny to be alone. That being alone is better. He can be alone. He can, if it means not having to hurt like this. 

Also, it’s possible that he spends too much time at the exhibit.

> “I know you,” the woman said quietly, walking towards him with a secretive smile. “You a WP?”
> 
> Steve stared at her blankly. 
> 
> She blushed, obviously flustered. “I’m so sorry. I just assumed… I’ve seen you here at least four or five times so… I’m… I’ll go. My mistake.” She turned and started to move quickly away.
> 
> “Wait!” Steve called out, realizing that when she had said ‘I know you,’ she hadn’t really known him at all… and wasn’t that refreshing? 
> 
> The woman turned.
> 
> “What’s a WP?”
> 
> Her eyes crinkled when she smiled, and she dug into her bag. “Wolf Pack. Here,” she said, thrusting a folded piece of paper into his hand. “They don’t like it when I hand these out inside the museum, and the last time they kicked me out it was for a full month, so please look at it somewhere else.”
> 
> Steve nodded, wide eyed, and shoved the paper into his pocket. 
> 
> The woman grinned as she turned and walked away. “It’s so much fun and the people are wonderful. I really hope you can make it!” 
> 
> “Thanks,” Steve replied, still slightly confused. This definitely hadn’t been his usual “Oh My God You’re Captain American and This Is A Thing You Have To Do,” conversations. The woman hadn’t even seemed to realize that he _was_ Captain America! Still, it was - in the end - just another thing, and Steve was just too tired for much of anything these days.
> 
> He walked the remainder of the exhibit slowly, eyes lingering on the faces of friends, reading over and over again the stories of the lives he’d missed. It was nice to read them, even if he already had them all memorized. The words were soothing. By the time he was done he at least felt a little calmer, if not necessarily any happier. There was a sharp pain in his stomach, and after a moment’s reflection he realized he was starving. He made his way to a small coffee shop near his apartment and, ordered and settled into his seat to drink his coffee and await his bowl of soup and two sandwiches. It was only then that he remembered the piece of paper in his pocket. He pulled it out, unfolded it carefully, and spread it out on the table in front of him. 
> 
> _COME GET YOUR WOLF ON!_
> 
> Steve immediately recognized the image in the top right corner from the pins he’d seen at the museum: five wolves in military uniforms, standing in a v-shaped formation. The front wolf had a star on his chest. All five had their snouts up in the air, as if they were howling. 
> 
> _Join us for HowlieConDC,_ the flier went on to proclaim. _The biggest Howling Commandos Convention in the US. Join Dr. Cynthia Summers, PhD, author of ‘A Pack Like No Other: The Lives and Loves of the Howling Commandos,’ as she discusses newly found historical evidence that suggests rumors regarding the sexuality of several of the Howlies are based more in fact than in fantasy._
> 
>   * _Vending  
>  _
>   * _Panels_
> 

>   * Book Signings
> 

>   * Historical Reenactments
> 

>   * Costume Contest
> 

> 
> At the bottom of the flier, the image of the wolves was repeated, this time without the uniforms. Under the picture, the caption read _At HCDC, We Go Commando._ [ _www.howlieconventionDC.com_ ](http://www.howlieconventiondc.com)
> 
> Steve rarely used his phone for anything more than phone calls. Occasionally Tony or Clint would text him, but that was about it. He frankly hated how everyone today had their phones glued to their hands 24/7, giving all their attention to that little screen when it should be focused on the people around them, the friends and family that they could lose at any moment. But now… Now, Steve pulled out his own phone immediately and navigated to the provided website.
> 
> He felt like he was having a stroke. Nothing made sense. His eyes darted between paper and the website displayed on his phone, not even noticing or bothering to say ‘thank you’ when the barista dropped off his food. 
> 
> It was an event dedicated to the Howling Commandos. For the first time, Steve didn’t feel the need to write anything down in his book. He didn’t need the reminder. The date was committed to his memory. He was going to HowlieCon, and nothing was going to stop him. 

The flier said costumes, and the website pictured people dressed up in army uniforms, smiling and having a great time. Steve had been excited to honor his friends; to remember that part of who he was. Now, though, as he stares at Bucky’s dress uniform in his hands, all Steve can think about is how much he misses him, and what a poor imitation he’s going to make. 

He only has the jacket. After New York, he’d worked up the courage to track down Bucky’s family. When he learned that Becca’s granddaughter lived in Brooklyn, not even three blocks away from the apartment that he and Bucky had shared for so many years, he just couldn’t bring himself to stay away. It was awkward, of course, everything with him always seems to be awkward, but Kimberly Proctor was kind and had Winnifred’s hair, and her wife told jokes and made Steve laugh while she made him a cup of strong tea. Their baby boy was three, and he had Bucky’s eyes.

He didn’t stay long but, before he left, Kimberly had pushed a storage box into his hands. “Don’t open it until you get home,” she’d made him promise.

The box, which is now safely on a shelf at the top of his closet, contains photographs and mementos. A newspaper clipping of Bucky’s obituary. A picture of Winnifred, with Becca, a man, and two children standing by her side. The back of the picture was labeled “Winifred Barnes on her sixtieth birthday, with Becca Barnes-Proctor, Scott Proctor, James Proctor (11) and Stephanie Proctor (8).

At the bottom of the box, carefully folded and wrapped in newspaper, had been the jacket to Bucky’s dress uniform. How they’d gotten it - how it had been so perfectly preserved for all these years - Steve would never know. It’s too much. He knows it’s too much. But _too much_ doesn’t matter, because he also knows that he is never going to give it back. 

It doesn’t fit him, of course. Bucky had been huge back then compared to Steve, but he’d still been thin - strong but lean - and Steve wasn’t about to risk shredding the delicate lining by trying to force his stupid, oversized shoulders into something so precious. But he’d been able to duplicate the rest of the uniform fairly well. He already had some drab army green pants, and with JARVIS’s help (Tony had somehow put JARVIS into his phone, which wasn’t a thing he was fully comfortable with even if he did acknowledge that it was useful) he’d ordered a shirt and tie off of the internet that were close enough to the right color. He’d found a knockoff WW2 hat at a costume store. He’d even grown his hair out a little, although he can’t seem to get it styled the way Bucky wore it. 

He looks in the mirror. The coat is hooked casually on his thumb and slung over his shoulder and, while he’ll never look as good as Bucky did in it, he can’t help but feel proud. It’s a good costume. 

Or so he thinks until he gets to the convention hall. 

***

The con is _nothing_ like what Steve expected. He’s not quite sure what he had expected, but it certainly isn’t this. This is loud and crowded and claustrophobic. Aisles and aisles of venders in a huge convention hall, packed with people pushing their way to the front of the line. It’s insane, and Steve feels overwhelmed in a way he hasn’t since he was 5’7 and 110 lbs soaking wet. 

And the costumes? The costumes are absolutely stunning! One moment he’s making faces at a baby wearing a near perfect (albeit smaller) replication of Dugan’s hat, and the next he’s practically jerking himself off his feet, spinning quickly to see Jacques Dernier and Gabe Jones walking past. It’s almost like being transported back in time. The man dressed as Jacques is wearing a worn leather coat, just a little bit shiny, and Steve can tell by looking at it that it’s soft and comfortable. There is a hint of threadbare blue shirt at the neck and the collar and, while Steve knows the webbing laced around the man’s chest can’t possibly be holding real hydra grenades or a gun, the props certainly look real. Gabe - and he knows it isn’t actually Gabe - is wearing his steel M1 helmet and dirty black boots. The green vest over his brown coat looks thick and warm, and the disintegrating link belt laden with careful rows of 30.06 rounds looks heavy. Sure, the faces are wrong, but that is Jacques and Gabe walking by and Steve feels frozen in place. And it isn’t just the clothing either. The way they move… their mannerisms. They are talking to each other comfortably in French, laughing at some shared joke, and for just a moment it’s like Steve is back in the war. The noises of the convention fade around him, twisting and changing into the jovial conversation of friends, the breaking down of camp, the rumble of guns in the distance. It takes every ounce of super-soldier strength Steve has not to run and gather Jacques and Gabe up into the biggest bear-hug he can muster.

He couldn’t really remember the last time he’d hugged someone. It must have been Bucky that January morning, just before they headed out to find the train... 

“Hey!” A voice pulls him out of his reverie. There is a woman tugging on his sleeve and he turns towards her. 

“Hi?”

“Hi! You looked way out of it for a second there. You ok? It’s a lot, I know. Do you need to sit down?”

“I…” Steve squints down at her, the memory of where he is and why he’s there coming back to him in a rush. 

She smiles. “You don’t remember me. It’s cool. We met at the museum!”

“The muse… oh! Hi!” Steve says, finally recognizing the woman from the Smithsonian.

She laughs. “Hi. I’m really glad you could make it, and shocked that I ran into you! It’s such a big place. Although, you’re pretty big yourself.” She elbows him not too gently in the ribs. It doesn’t hurt at all, of course.

“Yeah… I stand out sometimes,” Steve admits sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck and hunching his shoulders slightly. His eyes scan the room again.

That’s when he sees him, and the pounding in his ears drowns out everything the woman is saying. 

“Hey!” She shakes his sleeve again. “Buddy. Are you sure you’re ok? We could go get you a drink of water or something?”

“Yeah. What? No, I’m fine,” Steve manages to stutter out. “It’s just… Who is that?”

He doesn’t need to ask. He knows. He knows those shoulders, the swoop of those hips, the strength of those thighs. 

God does he know those thighs.

It’s Bucky. He doesn’t need to see a face to know that’s Bucky. He’s wearing brown pants and a leather jacket that’s torn at the shoulders and Steve can see a bit of bright blue peeking through. He’s got on a blue helmet and… oh. _Oh god._ There’s a thick brown band wrapped around the bottom of the helmet, just above the brim, and Steve knows without seeing the front that the band is a part of a pair of motorcycle goggles, and the helmet has a big white A on it and...

“Oh, him?” The woman laughs again, nodding in Bucky’s direction. “Yeah, that’s The Captain. He’s something else, isn’t he. Showed up on the scene about a year ago and blew everyone else out of the water. There’s a Twitter feed devoted entirely to his sightings, if you want to check it out. He wins every costume contest he enters. A fair number of people have even given up doing Cap costumes because of it… I mean, it’s just not as much fun if you know you have no chance of winning. And, it’s not just that his costumes are good. They certainly are; don’t get me wrong. Obviously, they’re good.”

She looks at Bucky again, and the expression on her face is slightly more than appreciative. It’s the first time Steve’s ever really wanted to hit a lady.

“It’s the attitude, really,” she continues. "The commitment. He never breaks character. Never. Won’t answer to anything other than Cap or Captain. If you’re real lucky, catch him in a good mood, maybe he’ll tell you to call him Steve. And he’s got the physicality down. You watch an old clip of Captain America, right? He moves a certain way. The Captain has mastered that. The way he talks… the sound of his voice…” 

She looks up at Steve and her eyes narrow. He hunches into his costume a bit more, trying to make himself look smaller than he is.

“Anyway, for a while there was a rumor going around that he was the real Captain America…”

She trails off, eyes locked on Steve’s face. Steve shifts uncomfortably, looks out over the convention hall, finds Bucky, feels weak.

Bucky turns, and it’s as if the world starts moving in slow motion. Steve can see the blue collar of the shirt underneath his jacket, the white tip of the star. Bucky is smiling. He’s laughing and talking to someone, and Steve feels like he can breathe for the first time in seventy-two years. He drinks in the lines of Bucky’s face, the curve of his lips, the dimple in his chin, and then…

Then something in Bucky’s posture shifts. He looks up. He locks eyes with Steve and there is a flash of recognition before Bucky’s face goes flat. The smile vanishes. His eyes become cold and flat, then he turns on his heel and disappears into the crowd. 

Steve stays until they kick him out, but he doesn’t see Bucky again.


	2. Don't get me wrong 'cause this might sound to you a bit odd

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok wait. I don't think I lead off last time by saying OH MY GOD THANK YOU to profoundalpacakitten who just swooped in and knocked me off my feet with this amazing banner and amazing art to come. I wish I could show it to you now but it's a spoiler. Anyway, they are spectacular in every way and I am not worthy. And yes... all of the chapter titles are also from Shakira. I'm leaning into it.

The first thing Steve does when he gets home is search the internet for when the next Howling Commandos Convention will be held. It’s in three weeks in Pittsburgh, and Steve has JARVIS mark off his calendar and purchase him plane tickets. Despite his insistence that it isn’t necessary, JARVIS books Steve a first class seat. It’s fine, he supposes. He doesn’t need it, but the regular seats  _ are _ pretty small.

The second thing he does is find the Twitter account that the woman from the Smithsonian had told him about. As far as he can tell, the account isn’t actually run by Bucky. It talks about where he’s been, not where he’s going to be, and features pictures of Bucky taken by other convention goers. Some are posed, but many are not and Steve hates the thought of Bucky having his privacy invaded like that. On the other hand, Bucky probably would have loved it back in the day. All of those people making a fuss over him? Buck would have eaten that right up. Steve makes his own Twitter account (@StevenGrant1918) and immediately follows @TheCapSightings.

The third thing Steve does is jerks off to the pictures featured on @TheCapSightings. 

And, okay. Steve will be the first to admit that it’s a little weird. Yes, it does feel a little bit like jerking off to pictures of himself, but also he knows that it’s not himself, it’s Bucky. And it’s Bucky smiling. It’s Bucky happy. It’s Bucky free and having a good time and not wearing a terrifying black muzzle while trying to stab Steve in the face. And Steve, despite what the history books seem to want people to believe, is a human being with human needs. Sure, maybe “the love of my life isn’t actively trying to kill me” shouldn’t be enough to get him off. Maybe he needs to reflect on why it is enough. But he never for a moment considers the fact that it won’t be enough.

It’s Bucky.

There is nothing else he needs.

The fourth thing Steve does is an internet search for a new costume. It feels a little self indulgent, a little wasteful, but he really doesn’t want to carry the jacket again next time. It didn’t feel safe. It’s all he has of Bucky ( _ for now,  _ he tells himself.  _ For now.)  _ and he doesn’t want to have to worry about it getting damaged in the crowds. Plus, he has the money. 

So he sits back in bed and scrolls mindlessly through the images, declining JARVIS’s offer of help three times, until he finds the one that looks right for him. 

There it is: Bucky’s blue jacket staring back at him from his computer screen. It’s perfect - double breasted, thick and dusty blue, broad in the shoulders and snug in the waist, with the golden swoop of the Howling Commandos delicately embroidered on its left arm. 

The cost is perfect too. Everything in the future is so expensive, and yet here this is - exactly what he needs - for twenty-eight dollars! It seems almost too good to be true, and he doesn’t hesitate to purchase it on the spot.

It is a bit of a concern when he sees that it won’t be arriving for fifteen to twenty days, but he reassures himself that it’s alright. Even the full twenty days still gives him a few days cushion before he needs to be in Pittsburgh. It’s fine. He’ll go, he’ll have the perfect costume, he’ll see Bucky, and everything will be wonderful.

***

Everything is not wonderful.

The jacket comes on the twenty-first day while Steve is packing (in a panic, he might add) to leave for Pittsburgh. Steve’s first thought upon receiving the package is that it feels too thin. He tells himself it is probably shrink-wrapped… compressed down to nothing by some futuristic technology in order to save on shipping fees. But then shouldn’t it be heavy? It doesn’t feel heavy. He takes the plastic pouch to his kitchen table and carefully cuts it open, dumping the contents out.

He sighs.

This is a disaster.

Instead of the beautiful, thick, layered silk jacket featured on the website and in his memories, this is a tight, blue, spandex disaster. It doesn’t open; the buttons along the front aren’t so much a double breasting as they are a bib-like-decoration creating an uneven rectangle across the chest. It has red lapels and, for some reason Steve couldn’t fathom, that narrow waist is created by snaps meant to hold it together under the crotch. It is…

Steve shakes his head…

It’s a bodysuit. 

It’s definitely not what he ordered.

He makes a mental note never to order from Wish ever again. He’d tell all of his friends, but he is pretty sure he doesn’t really have any friends except maybe Sam and Natasha, and they probably already know better. 

Steve holds the thin material in his hands. It is almost certainly going to tear the moment he tries to pull it over his arms.

The way Steve sees it, he has three options: He can carry Bucky’s dress jacket again, he can try to wear this spandex monstrosity, or he can just go sans-costume. 

In the end, he decides to leave the dress jacket at home and to pack the spandex. It has a weird smell to it, on top of everything else wrong, so he leaves it out of his suitcase as long as he can and shoves it into the front pocket at the last possible minute. If he decides he just can’t go out in it, or if it shreds when he tries to put it on, well he can always make the decision to go costume free on the morning of the convention. Steve dumps the last of his toiletries into his bag alongside the stinky, balled up monstrosity, and heads to the airport. 

When he touches down at the Pittsburgh International airport, Steve is tired, cramped, and honestly thankful for the upgrade to first class. He doesn’t miss Tony trying to solve everything by throwing money at it, but he definitely does miss the perks of private air travel. He wonders briefly if Tony would consider sending a jet to take him home, then laughs at himself. Of course he would consider it. Tony would jump at the opportunity to show off how much he has - how much better his life as a billionaire's was than anyone else's.

_ Maybe, _ Steve considers.  _ Maybe if I’m bringing Bucky home too. _

Bucky always did appreciate leg room.

Steve wakes at 5 am the next morning as usual, despite the convention not starting until 10:00. He takes a run through the city, then heads back to his hotel, showers, eats breakfast, and contemplates his clothing choices. In the end, the spandex jacket wins out. Yeah, it’s ridiculous, but it’s also a costume and he spent enough time in the  _ theatre  _ to know that the show must go on. He carefully rolls up the arms, then slips his hands gently through the paper-thin material. Once he’s got it pulled up to his elbows, he slides his head through the head hole and slowly works the material over his body. It’s tight. It’s crazy tight to the point where he’s a bit afraid he might lose circulation in his arms. 

He walks to the mirror and… oh. Well. Tony had made fun of him for wearing too tight of a shirt; maybe he should send Tony a picture of himself in this. (He’s definitely not going to send Tony a picture of himself in this.) To say it is obscene would be putting it lightly. It looks like it’s been painted on. You can see every line of every muscle, the dip of his belly button, the nubs of his nipples. Steve shakes his head, goes for the hem of the shirt, then pauses. He flexes gently. The material doesn’t tear. He tries again, flexing a little harder this time, and the material stretches but doesn’t rip.  _ Why not?  _ He thinks.  _ It’s not as if I’m going to send it back.  _ He flexes as hard as he can. The material strains at the seams. It digs into his arms, pulls across his back, and it’s so thin it’s see-through in places, but it stays intact. 

Bucky did always like his pecs. During the war, Bucky couldn’t keep his hands off of Steve’s pecs. Tits, he called them, and Steve hated that. He  _ hated it.  _ But he also loved it because the moment they were alone Bucky would have his hands all over him. Said he couldn’t stop himself. Said Steve’s pecs,  _ Steve’s tits _ , would be the death of him. 

The shirt is undoubtedly the absolute worst, but if there’s any chance it could lead to Bucky’s hands being all over him… Well, Steve can deal with a little bit of discomfort. Or a lot of discomfort. Or literally anything else Bucky asks him to do. 

Steve tucks the thing into his pants the best he can (and there is no way he’s snapping that business… Is this a shirt made for a woman? He isn’t even sure at this point). He’s got a pair of work boots and some loose grey pants, and a brown leather belt to buckle around his waist. It’s still not the best costume, but it’s definitely better than what he had and - he looks in the mirror - fuck it, he looks good - ridiculous painted on shirt and all. He slicks back his hair as best as he can, tries to give himself an inspirational murder stare in the mirror, and trudges out the door.

This convention is just as packed as the last one, and just like the last time nobody seems to recognize who he is. It’s liberating, really, and Steve considers the benefits of only existing in places where everyone is wearing a costume… before he realizes that’s a little too close to what his real life is like. 

The Pittsburgh convention is smaller than the DC one, occupying just one large hall and three side rooms. Posted signs say that the costume judging sessions will be held in the main hall, so Steve stays in there, wandering from booth to booth, trying to blend in and look inconspicuous. He gets a few high fives and some very appreciative looks, but nobody says anything negative. He takes his time walking through the booths, admiring the art and various crafts that people had created to sell. He hadn’t taken enough time to look at anything in DC - he’d been too busy trying to get close to Bucky. Now he spends time at each table, talking to the artists, interested in how they see his old friends and, when he finally leaves the cleverly named “artist’s alley,” it’s with a few new pieces of his own. For a moment, he even considers the possibilities of vending at something like this. He has plenty of sketches of the Howling Commandos. A few watercolors too. He could…

Steve pushes the thought out of his head. Captain America cannot set up a booth hawking his wares at an event designed to honor the Howling Commandos. 

As nonchalantly as possible, he makes his way towards where the costume contest will be judged. His hearing is good, but the room is loud and he ends up needing to get closer than he would prefer to be able to listen in on the group of assembled cosplayers. The front of the room is filled with people in costume discussing different ways to make a replica M1A1 Carbine that looks good enough to pass, but not so good it won’t be able to get through the front door. Others are debating what kind of material Falsworth’s cravat was made out of, and whether or not Bucky wore suspenders. (Silk, and god yes. Steve used to grab onto them - use them as a handle to pull Bucky’s body to his own. He remembered the way they felt under his hands, the way they felt wrapped around his wrists...).

Steve tries to keep an eye and an ear on everyone without being suspicious, and then…

_ Fuck. _

The noise Steve makes is somewhere between a gasp and a moan, and it’s loud enough that the woman next to him turns and gives him a dirty look. 

But Bucky… Jesus. It should be illegal for anyone to look like that. And yeah, sure, he wore it first, but he’s certain he never looked  _ that _ good. The green wool jacket is stretched tightly across Bucky’s broad shoulders, biceps straining under the sleeves. Bucky throws his head back, laughing at something, and the sound echoes like bells through the convention hall. He turns, and Steve can see the familiar collection of pins sprinkled across his chest: his arm-of-service pins, his SSR identification pins, the U.S. Army Distinguished Unit Citation, the Basic Parachutist Badge, the American Defense Service Medal, the Combat Infantryman Badge, the Purple Heart…

Steve feels something well up inside him. Something small and hard and more painful than anything he’s experienced up until this point, and he does his best to blink back the tears that gather at the corner of his eyes. Because those pins... Bucky’s medals… those that couldn’t be purchased at an Army supply store, they’re fakes. They’re quality fakes, but they’re fakes nonetheless. Steve has always felt the weight of those pins, the lie of them, the knowledge that he didn’t have the right, that didn’t truly deserve to carry them. And now Bucky, a man who deserved every single one of those pins and then some, is standing proud, a gentle smile curving at his lips, wearing a counterfeit Purple Heart.

Just like that, any thought of strategy - of staying hidden until the right moment - vanishes from Steve’s head. He practically runs into the crowd, and he’s sure that at least a few people get knocked out of the way as he moves. 

“Bucky!” Steve reaches out his hand without thinking, wrapping his fingers around Bucky’s wrist, and for a fraction of a second his skin is touching Bucky’s skin and it’s like electricity shooting through him. Steve can feel his own heart racing. He can feel Bucky’s warmth pressing against his fingertips, and he thinks for just an instant that he might drop to his knees. He could. He could drop to his knees right there, wrap his arms around Bucky’s dress-uniform-clad-thigh, and never let go. Bucky turns his head and there's a moment - less than a moment - where his perfect blue grey eyes lock on to Steve’s and Steve thinks he sees a flicker of recognition.

And then it’s gone. Just like that, Bucky pulls his hand away and his face goes blank.

No, it’s worse than that.

Bucky’s face isn’t totally blank. Bucky is smiling, but it’s not his smile. Bucky’s smile is lazy and cocky and syrupy sweet. Bucky’s smile is half sass and half challenge and all threat of something dangerous lurking just beneath the surface. This is not that. This is not Bucky’s smile. But it’s a smile Steve knows. It’s a smile Steve has seen a hundred times, more so recently, but also before. It’s the smile Steve sees plastered on his own face, reflected back at him through newsreels and press conference footage and online tabloids. It’s the smile he uses when he can’t stand where he is or who he’s talking to, but he still has to smile because he’s Captain Goddamned America and smiling is what is expected of him.

That’s the smile that Bucky is wearing now.

“Sorry, Pal,” Bucky says, in a voice that is both Bucky’s and somehow also his own. “I think you’ve got us confused.” His eyes trail over Steve’s chest and he arches an eyebrow. “You’re Bucky. I’m Steve.”

“Bucky,” Steve whispers.

Bucky’s eyes narrow. “No. You’re mistaken.” He turns and walks away, and Steve stands there stunned for a second before chasing after him. 

“Bucky!” he shouts, catching up to him. “Bucky, you gotta talk to me. I… can we go somewhere? What’s going on? Why are you here? Why won’t you talk to me? I’ve been looking for you.”

“Listen, son.” Oh shit, and Steve knows that voice too. That’s his… What did Tony call it? That’s his  _ Captain America is 500% done with your shit _ voice. And he has to admit it’s pretty fucking effective. “I don’t know what game you’re trying to play here, but it’s not working. When I put this on, I  _ am _ Captain America, and that’s not changing for you or anyone else. Maybe show a bit more respect for the cosplay process before you start dressing up yourself in absurd spandex. It’s not just a costume to me or to the people here. It means something.” 

Bucky nods at him once, curtly, then turns on his heel and walks away. 

Steve watches as Bucky wins the costume contest, but he doesn’t have another opportunity to get close to him for the rest of the day. Somehow, even though Steve never takes his eyes off of him, Bucky manages to disappear from the hall without Steve seeing where he went.


	3. But you own the place where all my thoughts go hiding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who read and commented and kudosed the first two chapters! This is fully written and you will be getting two chapters a day through the end. <3

The next convention isn’t for two months. It’s in Chicago, and Steve is moving forward on the assumption that Bucky will be there. He can’t let himself think about the way Bucky had run away from him in Pittsburgh, or the way he’d left Steve alone, again, without even saying goodbye. He can’t. Bucky  _ will _ be there, Steve  _ will _ find a way to talk to him, and that is the _ only _ possible conclusion he can bring himself to consider. The alternatives are… no. He can’t think about the alternatives. He won’t. 

Bucky told him to do research on cosplay and so he does. He throws himself into it with the same energy he threw into stopping Red Skull and ending the war. He’s not sure it will matter, but it’s something he can do. It’s somewhere he can put all the frustration and anxiety and fear that he’s feeling and, maybe, if he’s good enough, Bucky will notice. Maybe if he gets it right, Bucky will forgive him for letting him fall. He gets it now. It’s not enough to just dress up. Bucky is the best Captain America cosplayer out there because he  _ becomes  _ Captain America when he puts on the costume. 

That’s fine, Steve thinks. He can become James Buchanan Barnes. Nobody knows Bucky better than he does. Or… better than he did. Does he even know Bucky anymore? He can’t let himself think about it. He’ll go as the Bucky he knows.

Picking a costume is his first challenge. There are too many choices. It’s too hard to narrow down, and when he tries to think of Bucky… of  _ his  _ Bucky, the man he sees is a good head taller than he is, dressed in threadbare slacks and a white undershirt with suspenders off his shoulders and hanging loosely over his hips. His hair is slicked softly back from his face, his feet are bare, and his arms are wrapped loosely around Steve’s waist. One hand is settled softly in the small of Steve’s back as they sway to the music drifting down through the ceiling from Mrs. Dowdall’s Victrola. 

He knows that isn’t the right costume.

So he thinks and, as he thinks, he draws.

The last time he’d been in an art supply store, he’d been a sickly broke kid from Brooklyn, so he expects the outing to be overwhelming. If there is one thing he’s learned, it’s that everything in the future that  _ can be _ overwhelming,  _ is  _ overwhelming. There are too many people, too much movement, too many choices. He gears himself up for a stealth mission; a targeted strike. He’ll get in and out as quickly as possible, picking up the essentials only - a sketchbook and some pencils - just enough to help himself think and focus. Just enough to come up with the perfect costume. 

All that goes out the window, of course, the moment he walks through the brightly painted door.

What he hadn’t thought about… what he hadn’t even considered… was that the last time he’d been an art supply store, he’d also been colorblind. 

Steve ogles the watercolors and the acrylics. He lets his fingers dance across the pastels. There are tables with paper laid out and he uses them to test the pencils, feeling how the different brands and styles glide across the page. He judges the thickness of brushes, twirling them in his hands before returning them to the cups holding them or, more often than not, dropping them into his cart. He picks up six sketchbooks in different weights and sizes, a bundle of watercolor paper, and something called a Moleskine which is terribly overpriced for a notebook but feels heavenly in his hands. He’s eying an easel with an emotion he can only describe as lust and considering the logistics of strapping it to the motorcycle he rode there on when he is approached by the young woman who works at the store.

“I could deliver it, if you wanted.”

Steve turns abruptly. He’d been so engrossed - envisioning the easel in the small, well lit second bedroom in his apartment currently housing random boxes - that he hadn’t even heard her approach.

“You offer that here?”

“No,” she replies carefully. “But… I mean, you’re him, right? You don’t just look like him? You’re really Captain America?”

He sighs and smiles softly. “Yeah, I’m really him.”

“Well then I’ll deliver it for you on my way home. I have a car. You can trust me, Sir. I know you don’t have any reason to but… my grandpa, he used to talk about you all the time. Said you saved the life of more than half of his regiment. He um…” A blush spreads across her forehead, visible even as she looks down at the floor. “He claimed he mooned you. None of us ever believed him. He always said he was ashamed of it, but also he told me that story probably 500 times so…” 

“Your grandfather was with the 107?”

When she looks back up, her eyes are as wide as saucers.

“I remember him. I mean, not the specifics, obviously. He was pretty far away and I’ll admit I didn’t stare.” He laughs. “But, I remember trying to do my show and getting heckled and, yeah, somebody definitely dropped their pants to make it very clear what they thought about me and what I was saying.”

The girl’s blush deepens.

“I appreciated it, though!” Steve adds quickly. Then, when her look turned incredulous he added, “No really, I did. I had no idea what was going on. Do you… did your grandpa tell you the whole story, or just that he mooned me?”

“He told me people got captured and you saved them.”

“Yeah,” Steve says quietly, taking a moment to compose himself. “That’s the kind version. I didn’t know about any of it. I went there and did my stupid song and dance routine, not knowing that they were hurting…”

“But they shouldn’t have been mad, if you didn’t know…”

Steve holds up a hand, stopping her. “No, they should have been mad. I was a kid wearing a costume, thinking I was some big hero. I didn’t understand what war was. But if they wouldn’t have told me… or if your grandfather would have been more diplomatic… who knows if I would have listened. I might have never known. And then…” He trails off, gives the young woman a slow look once over. He knows it’s ok. Knows it’s not forbidden like it was then. Knows that the artist community has always been a safe place. He looks at her name tag. “Can you keep a secret, Kayla?”

She nods aggressively. 

“There was someone with the 107th. He was... I guess the term you would use today was partners? He was my partner. I… we were in love. And if I hadn’t known… if nobody had bothered to show me quite literally what an ass I was being, I might have lost him forever.”

“Oh.” The noise is soft and small as the realization of his words hits her. 

“Are you still willing to deliver me an easel?”

“Yeah. Yes. Absolutely, Sir. Captain.”

“Steve will be fine. Thank you, Kayla.”

***

“You wanna tell me about this coat?”

Steve’s head jerks up to find Sam standing in front of him. He has one of Steve’s sketchbooks in his hand, open to a page of Bucky during the war. Steve had spent over an hour trying to perfectly match the blue of his coat and the grey of his eyes. 

“What do you mean?” He asks, trying to stay casual. No, he really doesn't want to talk about it, but if he says that Sam will try to get him to talk about it even more.

“This coat. You keep drawing it over and over and over.”

“I’ve drawn other stuff, too.”

“Yeah, but nothing as much as this. Look at it, Steve. What even is this?” Sam holds up a page filled with small, blue circles.

“Buttons.” Steve glares at him. It’s obviously buttons. What a dumb question.

“Why are you drawing buttons? And this? It’s just a sleeve, Steve. What are you trying to prove by drawing a sleeve?”

Steve grits his teeth. It’s not worth trying to explain that he wasn’t trying to draw the sleeve so much as the wrist within the sleeve. There was something about Bucky’s wrists… the way he held them. The way they moved his hands, strong but fluid.

“I don’t know if this coat is the question or the answer, Steve. But it’s something, alright. We could talk about it, if you wanted.” 

Steve snorts. “It’s just drawings.”

“Well you’re drawing a lot of clothes. Either something is eating at you, or you’re gearing up for a career change to fashion design and I feel like either way you should let me know.”

“Ha ha.”

“Laugh all you want, but I’m serious.” Sam pages through the book, settling back onto the image of Bucky. He holds it up for Steve to see. “This is good. I mean, they’re all good, but if you do decide to go into fashion this one should be the centerpiece of your first show. It’s clearly very important to you.”

Later that night, after Sam leaves, Steve opens the door to his studio and turns on the light with those same words echoing through his head. There, in front of him, stretched across his easel on canvas, Steve has laid out Bucky’s blue coat in watercolor pencils.

It’s almost the right color.

The next day, he goes to the fabric store and buys pins, needles, thread, an entire bolt of blue silk, and a high-end sewing machine.

Maybe Sam was right. Maybe he should consider going into fashion design.

***

The jacket is not done. It’s not going to be done.

Steve is furious. He’s fairly certain he hasn’t been this mad at himself since that time in 1937 when it snowed six inches in an hour and he’d tried to go out and pick up pomade for Bucky. Bucky’d had a job interview the next day, Steve knew he was out of pomade, and he knew the snow on the roads meant the shop would be closed before Bucky had a chance to get there and pick more up. Not only had he trudged three blocks through thigh deep snow drifts, only to find that Mr. Blake was all sold out of pomade, but he’d then woken up the next morning, fever-drenched and with a sore throat, and Bucky had missed his job interview because Steve couldn’t stop coughing and Bucky stayed home to take care of him. The more Steve thinks about it, the more he realizes that he’s now spent three lifetimes letting Bucky down. He’d been a nuisance when he was small, he hadn’t protected Bucky when he was big, and now he couldn’t even follow simple directions like “make a goddamned costume.” 

No wonder Bucky doesn’t want anything to do with him.

He had one job. One fucking job! And on one hand it’s just a coat and rationally he understands that. He also understands that he needed to do a lot of work before he could even get started with the sewing. But he doesn’t understand why everything always needs to take so goddamn long!

The first step had been finding a pattern, and that in itself had been a major challenge. The blue jacket, it would seem, is the holy grail of Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes cosplay. There were countless websites devoted to theories of what exactly it looked like and how it had been constructed. 

The theories are all good, but they’re also all just a little bit wrong. 

Some of the websites suggest the jacket was wool, but it absolutely wasn’t. It was silk. And it wasn’t quilted, either, which is another common misperception Steve finds in his searching. It was reinforced. Layered. Layers and layers of silk, one on top of the other, creating a shell so thick it was effectively bullet proof except at the closest of ranges. There was no kevlar during World War 2 and, although it pained Howard to admit that he was unable to come up with a technological solution, the one he did find was effective… and elegant too. 

Steve had pieced together several of the provided patterns, taking what he knew to be right from one and adding it to what he suspected to be right from another, and then he’d made the entire thing out of bed sheets, just to be sure. Yeah, he had extra silk, but it was expensive and he didn’t have a ton and he wanted to know he had it right before he started cutting. Then he’d needed to learn how to cut the silk without it fraying, how to keep the slippery fabric still as he sewed, how to match the grain and place a button. He’d broken several needles before realizing that he needed something stronger to get through the thick layers. He’d learned about seam binding and bias and how to create a gusset so he could move his arms. Rationally, he understands why it’s taking so long, but that doesn’t change the fact that Chicago convention is four days away and he isn’t even halfway done with the coat, nevermind having started the brown paratrooper pants made out of cotton sateen and treated canvas. It isn’t going to happen, and if Steve wants anything to wear in Chicago he needs to admit to that. 

So he changes directions, deciding instead on the green wool sweater, drab olive pants, brown leather gaiters, and brown boots that Bucky had been wearing when Steve had found him in Kreischberg. It’s an easy enough costume, all readily available at an Army supply store, and all Steve has to do is distress it until it looks frayed and worn. 

He realizes as he’s packing it into his suitcase that he should be sadder than he is. It’s a sad costume. Bucky was tortured in this. And yet… that’s not what Steve thinks when he looks at it. Maybe he should. Maybe the fact that he doesn’t makes him a bad person. But when Steve thinks about Bucky in those pants and that sweater, all he can think about is the hike back to camp. They’d walked for hours, through the night, despite everyone’s exhaustion. Nobody wanted to stop. They all needed to get as far away from that place as possible. Finally, a little before noon the next day, Dum Dum pulled Steve aside.

> “Nobody is going to be the one to say it. They all want to get the hell away from there, that’s for damned sure. But the men need a rest.”
> 
> Steve stared at him. It hadn’t even occurred to him; not really. He’d spent 25 years of his life being the slow one, the small one, the weak one. If he could keep going, his brain just automatically assumed everyone could. He wasn’t a real leader, not like Dum Dum was, and he promised himself that he'd be better at thinking about everyone else on his team from that point forward.
> 
> “I’ll take first watch,” he said to Dum Dum, after the men were settled. Stopping in the middle of the day was a good choice. It meant they could stay warm without fires, even in the cool November weather. 
> 
> “By yourself?” Dum Dum asked with an arched eyebrow. “Seems like a lot, even for Captain America.”
> 
> “I’ll help.” A man stepped forward. He had a thick beard and unruly hair, and Steve liked him right away. His voice was gruff and, to Steve’s absolute surprise, he had a thick cigar clenched between his teeth.
> 
> “You need to rest, soldier,” Steve said.
> 
> “Nah.” The man stepped closer, and Steve could tell that he was strong. Stronger than he should be… “Let the others sleep. I can handle this.”
> 
> And somehow, Steve knew that he could. He nodded. “By yourself?”
> 
> “‘s always been how I work best.”
> 
> “Alright. Fire your gun once if there are any issues and I’ll come to you.” The man grunted out his agreement, then was gone.
> 
> “What about you, Steve?” Bucky asked, walking towards him. “You gonna take watch by yourself too?”
> 
> “Figured I would, Buck. You and everybody here needs some rest.”
> 
> “Is that what I need, Steve?” Bucky looked down at the ground, shoulders hunched in slightly, toe drawing pictures in the dirt. 
> 
> His green wool sweater was unbuttoned at the collar, gaping open and revealing his dog tags, resting on a chest that was dirty and dotted with dark chest hair. His jaw was stubbled, a bruise forming under his left eye. He was gorgeous, and it took everything he had to focus on Dum Dum, who was staring questioningly at the two of them. 
> 
> They hadn’t talked about it. Not at all, really. Bucky had commented that Steve should be smaller, and after that nothing had been said. Steve kept trying to bring it up the whole walk home but he couldn’t find the words. He was a coward plain and simple, and he couldn’t bear to hear what Bucky must be thinking. This wasn’t Steve’s body. This wasn’t the body Bucky had fallen in love with. It was too big and too clunky and too strong. Bucky could never want this.
> 
> “You know I keep having this recurring nightmare,” Bucky mumbled, still looking down. “I get back home, get up to our apartment, and I’ve lost my keys. Forgot to bring them to war with me. I’m so close and I can’t go home.”
> 
> Steve let out a small gasp. He knew that Dum Dum must have heard it, but he couldn’t be bothered to think of the consequences of that. “You know I would let you in, Buck.”
> 
> “What if you were asleep, though? You sleep so soundly.”
> 
> “You’re right,” Steve said, and warmth surged through his entire body at the familiar words. “I am a deep sleeper. When we get out of here, you’d better head back with me just in case.”
> 
> Bucky lifted his eyes, and Steve’s breath caught in this throat. Bucky’s eyes were dark, pupils practically swallowing up the irises. “I guess I’d better,” Bucky said. “Until then, can I take the watch with you?”

Steve stares down at the shirt in his hands as the memory washes over him. Of all the things Bucky might have said to him in that moment, Steve hadn’t expected it to be their old code, their own way of saying that they had no interest in keeping up the facade, that Bucky wasn’t going to fool around with the girl he was with but wanted to go home and fuck Steve through the mattress. 

_ “I forgot my keys,” Bucky always said. _

_ “I’ll try to stay up and let you in when you get home,” Steve had always replied. “But you know I’m a sound sleeper.” _

_ “Yeah,” Bucky had said, and then there was always an excuse. “Plus you had to get up early this morning. I’d better head home with you, just to be safe.” _

He remembered the way Bucky had reached out to him, once they were alone in the forest. The way he’d clung to Steve, fingers squeezing so tight they’d left bruises. He shouldn’t have been able to leave bruises, but Steve hadn't noticed that. He hadn’t noticed so many clues that might have helped him save Bucky. He’d been useless; helpless to do anything but beg and babble as Bucky pressed him up against a tree and slid into him, nothing but spit to soothe the way. 

Steve walks to his closet and opens it, retrieving a small, clamshell jewelry box from the top shelf. He clutches it tightly in his hands for a moment as tears cloud his eyes, then opens it. The dog tags inside are dull and battered, and Steve grips them in his fist. 

He’d panicked when he’d woken up enough to notice they were missing, and it had been Coulson who had given them back without a single word of commentary. Steve hadn’t been able to put them back on, though. He didn’t deserve them. He didn’t deserve the promise they represented. He still doesn’t. He’d failed Bucky. He’d let Bucky fall and left him alone to be tortured and used. Still… Steve draws the chain up so the tags are at eye level and inspects them. They are the most realistic part of the costume that he has. And God, he just wants a piece of Bucky close to him again. He grits his teeth and pulls the tags over his head, feeling the cool weight of them resting against his chest. 

“I love you,” Bucky had whispered that afternoon after taking Steve apart in the Austrian forest. “You’re my home, you got that? Wherever you are, that’s my home.”

> “Shit, Buck. I love you too. I love you so goddamned much.”
> 
> “You take these, ok? Give me yours.” Bucky slid off his own dog tags, then pulled them over Steve’s head. “Wish I could give you a ring but this’ll have to be enough, ok?”
> 
> Steve nodded wordlessly, trying to blink back the tears welling up in his eyes. 
> 
> “You’re mine, Stevie. You’re mine, and I’m yours, and we’re never going to be apart again, ok? Never. I’m with you to the end of the line, pal.”
> 
> “To the end of the line,” Steve repeated the vow back, placing his own dog tags over Bucky’s head. 

Steve is going to get him back. Whatever it takes. 

***

Chicago is the hardest convention yet. Steve had considered Bucky not being there the worst case scenario, but that would have been nothing compared to the torture that he is going through now. Because Bucky is there. He’s there and he’s so close, but no matter what he tries, Steve can’t get to him. Whatever Steve does, wherever he moves, Bucky slips out of his grasp. He’s there and he’s beautiful, working the crowd, smiling and kissing babies, taking pictures with anyone who asks. And Steve could happily watch him for hours, just knowing that he’s safe... Except, after the convention hours are over, Steve wants to do more than just watch him. He wants to hold him close, to breathe in the scent of his skin, to take him home and hold him tight and never let him go again. 

Bucky is the Star Spangled Man with a Plan this time, red boots and gloves and that damned heater shield. Steve had always hated that shield, so clearly for display and not useful for fighting, but Bucky makes it look good. He’s got it looped casually over his left forearm as he stands, hands on his hips, a soft smirk on his face as he talks with a group of teenage girls dressed as Star Spangled Singers. When they move into formation behind him to get a picture, and more of Bucky is revealed, Steve almost chokes on his own breath.

God. He remembers that costume. The shirt was spandex and the pants were tight, but he never looked like that. Steve knows that he’s big. He’s bigger than he wants to be. But the way Bucky’s shoulders flex under the shirt… the way his thighs tug at the blue pants, stretching them across his thighs...Steve’s mouth is dry and his knees are weak and he’s not too proud to beg. If only he could get close enough that it would matter. 

Bucky always loved it when he begged.

Bucky avoids Steve effortlessly, always on the other side of the room, always with a crowd between them. The way he moves is comfortable and casual, and nobody would even notice that it was happening, but Steve notices. Steve knows. 

He’s not going to be able to talk to Bucky today, either. 

Somehow, he forces himself to stay through the costume contest. It’s terrible, having Bucky so close and not being able to touch him, but Steve knows that, when it’s time to judge the costumes, Bucky will be on stage and at least Steve will be able to see all of him. 

Steve goes to the assigned hall an hour and a half early, just to be sure he gets a seat in the front row.

Bucky is beautiful, of course. The other Captain America cosplayers simply don’t compare. Hell, Steve isn’t sure he would compare, if given the chance. Bucky commands the stage. He laughs. He smiles graciously. He encourages everyone else up there to do their absolute best.

Of course he wins. 

And that’s when it hits him. The winners - they’re all being ushered backstage. Just the winners. All together. Steve’s jaw drops.

That’s it.

That’s how he gets close to Bucky.

He doesn’t wait until the convention is over to leave this time. He doesn’t need to. He knows Bucky isn’t going to come and find him and, for the moment, it doesn’t matter. He has a mission. He knows what he needs to do.

The next con is a month and a half away, and it’s in New York City. HowlieCon DC claimed it was the biggest Howling Commandos convention in the US, but Steve isn’t sure what they were basing that on. This one is over three days and Steve isn’t positive anyone deserves that much recognition, but it is what it is. 

And the real kicker?

Tony is hosting, and the whole thing is being held at Avengers Tower. 

Steve is going to win.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why yes, Wolverine is in this chapter. Thank you for asking! Why did I do that? I mean... because I can? 
> 
> This is all the way done, but your comments inspire me to ignore my responsibilities and write more fun other things. And/or they make me a better writer!!!  
> XOXO  
> ~Gwen


	4. And right under your clothes, is where I find them

Steve sits on the floor in his living room, surrounded by piles of blue silk, his head in his hands, and tries not to sob. He can feel that he’s crying, knows he can’t stop that, but at least if he keeps it quiet he can keep it to himself. If he starts audibly sobbing, the ugly, choking gasps that are threatening to break free from his throat, then who knows what Sharon will hear? Who knows what will be picked up by the bugs he’s sure SHIELD has placed throughout his apartment? He refused to let Natasha sweep for them, although he’s sure she did anyway. He should have let her. He doesn’t need them knowing. He doesn’t need anyone knowing. He’s so busy wallowing in his own misery and failure, trying not to make a sound, trying to control the despair that’s coursing through his veins that he doesn’t even hear Sam come in. Sam could be anyone and, for just a second, when he lays his hand on Steve’s shoulder, Steve assumes it’s someone from Hydra sent to kill him.

He doesn’t try to stop them. 

“Want to tell me what’s going on?” Sam’s voice is softer than usual, and Steve makes himself sit up straight as he quickly wipes his eyes. 

“I’m fine. How did you get in here?”

The look Sam gives Steve as he crosses his arms over his chest is nothing less than incredulous. “Nat gave me a key and you’re clearly not fine.”

“I _am_ fine,” Steve insists, quickly jumping up to his feet. “And how did Nat get a key? I didn’t give her a copy.”

“You really need to ask that?”

Steve sighs. “No, I suppose I don’t.”

“Want to tell me why it looks like a Smurf ate a JoAnn Fabrics and then vomited in your apartment?” 

Steve’s eyes search his living room, looking for a path to argue his way out. He finds nothing.

“So, the coat?” Sam prompts.

Steve looks down at the floor, then nods his head in agreement.

“Let me guess? You’ve got a spot on the next season of Project Runway?”

Steve scowls at him. “I don’t know what that…”

“Steve, I’ve been to the Smithsonian exhibit. I’ve read a textbook or seventeen on Captain America and the Howling Commandos. I know Sergeant Barnes’s coat when I see it. So are you going to tell me what the hell is going on or not? And…” Sam raises a hand to cut Steve off before he can even open his mouth. “...If the answer is _not,_ you’d better believe that I’m going to march my ass directly out of here and give a detailed report of what I saw today to Nat and Sharon. The two of them can work together to figure it out.” 

“You wouldn’t.”

“I certainly don’t want to, but at this rate you’re not leaving me much of a choice!”

Steve sighs and gives one last desperate look around the room, searching for any chance of escape or distraction, then tells Sam everything.

Sam only interrupts once to ask if Steve is sure The Captain is Bucky. After Steve is done talking, they sit in silence for a few minutes. “It’s a lot,” Steve says, trying to fight off the alternating waves of shame and dread that are washing over him.

“It is a lot,” Sam agrees. “The one thing I don’t understand is why you kept it to yourself. Why didn’t you tell anybody before now?”

“I don’t know,” Steve admits, hanging his head slightly. “I guess I was embarrassed.”

“Of which part,” Sam asks. Somewhere during his story they’d moved to the couch, and Sam rests a hand gently on his knee. “Of the part where you’ve joined a community of like-minded people that gets you out of the house for reasons other than fighting? Or the part where you’ve found a hobby that helps you express yourself creatively and, today excluded obviously, seems to make you happy? Or are you embarrassed by the part where you’re trying to get back the love of your life who you thought was lost forever?”

Steve’s eyes are wide as he looks up at Sam. “I’m that obvious.”

“You’re pretty obvious,” Sam says with a wry grin. “But also, I was looking.”

Steve doesn’t even try to hide the surprise on his face.

“Give me a break, man. Now you’re just fishing for compliments. Obviously you’re a good looking dude, but it didn’t take long to realize that there was somebody else. I didn’t realize it was Barnes, but that makes sense. If there was a chance in hell for me to get Riley back, you know that’s all I’d be thinking about. Sometimes I’ll be out somewhere and I’ll swear I see him, just out of reach. I can’t imagine what it would be like if it was actually real. To have him slip through my fingers like that? I’d lose it. It makes sense that you’re losing it.”

Both men sit silently for a moment, before Sam continues. “So yeah, I get it, and you have nothing to be embarrassed about. I just wish you would have told me what was going on sooner so that I could have helped before it got to, well…” Sam gestures vaguely at Steve and the shambles of his apartment “...this.” 

“You know how to sew?”

“I mean, enough to get by, sure. Not as much as you do, from the looks of it. But that’s not what I meant. When is the New York convention again?”

“Two weeks,” Steve answers drearily.

“Alright. Hold on a second.” Sam pulls out his phone and taps away at it for a few minutes. “Alright, we’re good. Pack up your mess.”

“Where are we going?” Steve asks, already moving to carefully fold the piles of blue silk.

“We’re going home.”

***

Sam’s mother lives in a nice but modest brownstone townhouse in Harlem, and Steve feels welcomed the moment he steps through the doors and Mrs. Wilson wraps him in a firm embrace. They arrive in the late afternoon. Steve suggests he stays at a hotel or the tower but Sam isn’t having any of it. He can’t help but wonder how much of it is Sam feeling the need to keep an eye on him, and how much is Sam wanting a buffer between his mother and himself.

Dinner is a family affair, and they’re joined by Sam’s older brother, Gideon and his younger sister, Sarah, as well as Sarah’s two children. Gideon leads a prayer before dinner and, while Steve doesn’t really believe in that sort of thing anymore, the ritual of it all is comforting. The dinner itself is amazing. At first Steve takes only a small amount, worried that there isn’t enough to feed everyone on top of his super soldier metabolism, and it isn’t until he watches Gideon leave the table with an empty spaghetti dish and return with two full ones that he realizes there are seconds (and thirds!!) of everything keeping warm in the kitchen. The conversation is easy, and nobody is too focused on the fact that he’s Captain America. Instead, they ask him easy questions: about the cons, about how he’s liking D.C., about whether or not he’s checked out the new dog park across town. No one asks how things have changed. No one asks how he’s adjusting. No one asks him to talk about the war or to be inspirational. 

The next morning, Steve wakes as early as always and heads out for a run. On the way back he stops at a nearby butcher and buys sausage, then at a bodega for eggs and cut fruit, and finally at a bakery for pastries and several extra large cups of coffee. Balancing everything precariously, he walks back to Mrs. Wilson’s house, through the door, and into the kitchen.

“Always the overachiever,” Sam says, taking one of the coffee cups and smirking at Steve. 

“I got sausage,” Steve says, in lieu of a response. “And eggs. Thought maybe I could make pancakes.”

“You’re making nothing.” Sam arches an eyebrow at him. “You think I’m gonna let you burn down my mother’s kitchen?”

“I’m not that bad of a cook, Sam!”

“Oh, you totally are. But this is good. Mom’ll be down soon and then you and she can start working while I make us some breakfast.”

“But you shouldn’t have to…”

“Steve,” Sam’s voice is serious. He nods at the piles of food that Steve brought home with him. “You did good here. It’s enough.”

“It’s not…”

“It is. I promise.”

Steve gives a shaky smile of agreement, then forces himself to start gathering his supplies while Sam starts breakfast. As predicted, Mrs. Wilson joins them less than five minutes later. She’s got a coffee in one hand, a pastry in the other, and a smile on her face when she sits down at the table next to Steve. “Alright. Show me what we’re working with.”

Steve takes out his notebook and opens it to a page near the back where he’s drawn the front, back, and sleeves of Bucky’s coat, along with front and back views of Bucky’s pants. Paper clipped to the page is an envelope, and out of that he pulls two pictures photocopied from a textbook, a few stills from one of the many Howling Commandos newsreels, and some photographs he’d taken at the Smithsonian. He pushes everything towards Mrs. Wilson, then pulls out the work he’s already done. 

“I’m really happy with the chest and the sleeves, but I can’t make the back fit right,” Steve says, as he lays the coat down on the kitchen table and smooths his hands gently over it. “And I’m nervous about the buttons. And… I just can’t get the pants right. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong.”

Mrs. Wilson lays her hand gently on Steve’s. “You’ve done a good job here, alright. I need you to know that.” 

“Thank you, Mrs. Wilson.”

She shakes her head. “Oh no. You’ve slept in my house and you’re older than I am. You call me Darlene. Got it.”

Steve nods at her. “Thank you, Darlene.” 

“The rest is just a matter of experience,” she continues, unbothered. “You shouldn’t feel bad that you couldn’t get it right all on your own. This is a really challenging project. For the pants, were they too tight in the groin or too loose?”

Steve blushes. “I’ve tried twice so… both?”

She laughs, then picks up the pictures, comparing a newsreel still showing Bucky’s back to one of Steve’s drawings. Next, she picks up the back piece Steve had sewn and inspects it. “Alright, I think I see your problem here. There’s nothing wrong with the coat, exactly. But… Well, this was a custom coat, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So, it makes sense that - if you try to make it exactly the same - it’s not going to fit you the way it fit him. You and Sergeant Barnes have very different body types. He’s more boxy while you’re…”

“Shaped like a Dorito?” Sam interrupts, bringing over plates of food and setting them down carefully apart from the blue silk.

“Sam!” 

“What?” Sam laughs. “It’s true though.”

Darlene sighs, rolling her eyes at her son. “Steve, you know how everyone has different body shapes, right? There’s pear, and apple, and you’ve got the classic V-shape with the broad shoulders and thin waist. But this man in the pictures doesn’t have that. He’s more stocky. Rectangular. You’re trying to make a replica of his, but that’s not going to work. You need to tailor it to your build.”

“What she’s saying is that your car destroying demon-boy is thick, Steve. He’s beefy. He’s got something to hold onto. And you...well, you’re just a little snack.”

“Samuel T. Wilson, you mind your manners around my guest! I taught you better than that!”

“ _Your_ guest!” Sam snorts as he grins at her. “So you’re sayin’ Steve is more of a big snack? Maybe a full meal?”

She swats at him. “Get out of here. We’re working and you’re a distraction.” 

Sam just smiles harder, sitting down at the clear end of the table with his own plate while aggressively maintaining eye contact with his mother. 

“It’s an easy fix, really,” Darlene continues, ignoring him. "We can put in two small darts at the waist and it’ll fit like a dream. As for the buttons…” She turns the jacket over in her hands, inspecting the front. “You were right to be nervous. Buttonholes are hard and unforgiving. Do you want me to teach you, or do you want me to do them for you?”

“Teach me,” Steve answers without hesitation. “I’ve done this much; I want to finish it.”

“Good. I can see why Sam likes you. We’ll practice - make sure you’re comfortable before you work on the real thing. And the pants…” Darlene clears her throat slightly. “The problem with pants is that they’re difficult to fit on yourself. You really just need an extra hand...” she pats him on the upper thigh. “...Just to make sure everything’s lying nice and smooth.”

“Mother!” Sam throws his napkin at her. “And you said I was bad. You’re going to scandalize the old man!”

And this time, Steve can’t help but laugh along with both of them. 

***

Three days later, Steve has the closest thing to a bounce in his step that he’s had in a long time. With over a week to spare, his costume is done and he’s ready for the convention. He’s in Brooklyn, walking aimlessly - but not in a bad way - letting his feet carry him wherever his memories direct them, seeing what’s different, seeing what’s the same. A lot is different. Enough is the same. He’d walked past an open house earlier in the day - a condo for sale in a too modern looking building that had replaced the run-down tenement he’d once lived in. The open floor plan had been breathtaking, the loft, the balcony. It was nothing like the old apartment he’d shared with Bucky. That had been dark and cramped and cold. This was open and bright and warm. There were too many windows. The ceilings were too high. And yet… there was something about it. Something about the reclaimed wood floors in the lofted bedroom that made him want to cry.

Now, as he walks through the streets of his old neighborhood, he’s considering buying it.

This is it. He can feel it. He’s ready. He’s going to see Bucky and Bucky is going to talk to him and that is all there is to it. The smell of coffee and fresh bakery wafts out of an open doorway and he turns into the small cafe without much thought.

Bucky is there.

Bucky is sitting at one of the small tables in the back, facing the main door. There is an exit only door directly to his left. His eyes are locked on Steve.

Steve moves towards him without thinking, because there is no universe where Steve Rogers wants to be anywhere but as close as he can be to Bucky Barnes. Bucky’s fingers tighten on his coffee cup, but other than that he doesn’t move.

“Hi,” Steve says softly, when he reaches the table. “Can we talk?”

Bucky blinks up at him, and for the first time in his entire life, Steve can’t read the expression in his face. “I…” Bucky’s voice falters. “I know you.”

“What?” The question comes out as a gasp, barely above a whisper, and Bucky’s eyes go wide.

“I’m… I’m sorry. I thought. I… Shit. I…” 

Steve can see Bucky collapsing internally, drawing himself into himself, making himself smaller. 

“I thought that… I… Shit.” He digs frantically in his bag and pulls out a white card, handing it over to Steve. 

Steve takes the card and reads it. It’s about the size of a business card, but laminated, and it reads:

> _My name is James Buchanan. I have a brain injury, and as a result:_
> 
>   * _I may forget names or misidentify people_
>   * _I may get confused about where I am or what year it is_
> 

>   * _I may have anxiety_
> 

>   * _My behavior might sometimes appear erratic_
> 


Steve reads the card over twice, then hands it back to Bucky. 

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says, only looking up enough to retrieve the card. “Some days are better than others. I thought -” his eyes quickly dart over Steve. “I thought I knew you.”

“You do, Buck,” Steve answers, sliding into the seat across from him at the table. 

“It’s James.”

“What?”

“My name. It’s James. Like it says on the card. James. James.” Bucky repeats it over, as if he’s feeling it on his tongue for the first time and finding it lacking. “James.”

“James.” Steve hates how the word sounds coming out of his mouth. “You do know me. I was at the DC HowlieCon, and then again in Pittsburgh.”

Bucky’s eyes brighten. “Yeah. Yeah, I remember you now. You’re the kid in spandex who wanted me to break, but,” he frowned again. “There’s something else…”

Steve can feel his heart shattering. If Bucky truly doesn’t remember him, what hope does he have? He clears the thought from his mind. If this is who Bucky is now, then Steve will build a friendship with this Bucky. _With this James_ , he corrects himself. “You’re really good,” he tries tentatively. “At the cosplaying, I mean. A bunch of people told me you were the best. Why…” Steve falters, tries to find the right words. Anything to get Bucky talking. “Why do you like it so much?”

Bucky grins, and his joy is almost childlike. “It’s great. I absolutely love it. It’s something my therapist recommended, actually. I get confused sometimes, like the card says, but somehow I always know what Steve Rogers would do, you know? It’s calming.” His face shifts into something guarded. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. I don’t even know you.” His hand moves up towards his neck and he tugs on the silver chain there, mindlessly pulling Steve’s dog tags out from under his shirt and running his thumb over them. “If I don’t know you...” he repeats, looking Steve straight in the eyes.

Steve can’t help but wonder how many people saw those eyes the moment before they died.

He’d gladly trade places with any of them.

“...why do I feel like I can trust you?” Bucky finishes his question.

“Your costume is wrong, you know.” Steve says, trying to hold back his tears. “It’s not accurate.”

“Of course it is.”

“No, it’s not.” Steve pulls Bucky’s dog tags out from under his shirt, holding them so that Bucky can see. “Steve Rogers never wore his own tags - not from the day after he rescued Bucky on. They switched. He wore Bucky’s and Bucky wore his.”

“The history books don’t say anything…”

“You don’t need the history books though, right? You said. You know what Steve Rogers would do. Think about it. You know it’s true, Bucky. Tell me you remember. Tell me you know it’s true.”

Bucky curls in around himself like he’s been kicked in the gut, and when his eyes look up to meet Steve’s, they’re wet with unshed tears. For a second, Steve begins to panic, afraid that he’s taken it too far, that he’s actually hurt Bucky, and then…

“Stevie?” 

It’s barely a whisper. It’s all he’s been dreaming of since waking up in a future where everything is too big and too loud and too cold and too much and all he’s wanted was to go home, to have peace, to be known and be loved and be held by this man and…

“I can't.” Bucky is closing in on himself, quickly shoving his things - a notebook and some pencils, a book, a phone - into a black backpack before zipping and buckling it closed. “I can’t. I can’t do this. This isn’t real. You’re not real!”

He’s shouting. The rest of the cafe is starting to stare.

“I can’t do this. Not again. Not again, please. Please!” 

Bucky knocks the wooden cafe chair over as he steps away from the table and, as he sets it back on it’s legs, Steve can see his hand is trembling. “Don’t follow me. Don’t you dare fucking follow me.” He backs slowly out of the cafe, eyes locked on Steve the entire time.

Steve can’t move. He can’t breathe. 

He doesn’t try to follow.

The moment the door shuts and Bucky disappears from view, he begins to sob.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I tag this for angst? I think I forgot to tag this for angst. I should fix that!!!


	5. 'Cause of you, I forgot the smart ways to lie

Even after all the work they put in, Steve almost doesn’t go to the New York convention. 

It’s the morning of, and he’s back on his floor in the tower, lying in bed, unable to fall back asleep, unable to get up and start the day. The tower is as he remembers it - too big, too modern, too cold. He wishes he was back at the Wilson’s. He wishes he were in Brooklyn and it was 1941 and he and Bucky were living in a small flat with no hot water and only one bedroom. He wishes he were at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. 

It’s not that he doesn’t want to go. He wants to go more than he’s ever wanted anything before in his life, but if Bucky really doesn’t want to see him… His brain short circuits at the thought. He can’t even begin to imagine it. If Bucky doesn’t want to see him, he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. And yet, as he lies in bed staring up at the too perfect, too white ceiling, he realizes that Bucky not wanting to see him isn’t even the worst case scenario. If Bucky sends him away again, then at least Bucky is getting what he wants. 

But if Bucky talks to him...

Bucky had made it perfectly clear that he didn’t always know who he was, that his actions - his ability to so perfectly transform into The Captain - had been instinct and not memory. It’s not something conscious. It’s not something he’s controlling. It’s a loss of control.

_Disassociation,_ Steve’s brain helpfully supplies. A word his therapist had thrown at him when he’d described the feeling of losing himself - of losing _hours_ \- standing in front of the punching bag, feeling nothing even as the blood seeped from his knuckles. 

He’d told her it had felt freeing.

She’d told him it was a concern.

If Bucky doesn't know who Steve is… who either of them are… then nothing Steve wants even matters. 

_Bucky doesn’t know him._

_Bucky has a traumatic brain injury, and forgets who he is._

_Bucky understands what it means to be Steve Rogers, but he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know what Steve Rogers meant to him._

_Bucky told him to stay away._

If Bucky is acting on impulse, and if Steve approaches him as Bucky while Bucky is Steve then Bucky should react exactly how Steve would react.

Which is to say, he’d do literally anything Steve asked him to do, without question or hesitation. 

And if Bucky doesn’t really want that, if Bucky only wants Steve because some part of him, deep down, knows Steve wants Bucky…

It’s too much. His head is spinning and his ears are ringing and he feels a bit like he might vomit. He takes a shower - turns the water up so hot it scalds his skin, turns the pressure up so high it feels like razor blades slicing through him. Still… even under the scalding hot water, even with the force of the spray overwhelming his nerve endings, he’s still cold. Always cold. 

Eventually he admits to himself that he can’t hide in the shower any longer. The hot water is unlimited but his fingers and toes are starting to feel like prunes. He’s Captain America. He should be better than this. Steve turns off the water, dries himself with an oversized towel, and stumbles out of the bathroom feeling like an overcooked noodle. When he flops down onto the bed he definitely considers crawling back under the covers like a wounded animal crawling into a hole to die.

He rests for a moment, then forces himself to get back up. He always gets back up. There isn’t any other choice. After dragging himself to his duffle bag, he pulls out a pair of black boxers and steps into them. He stares at the rest of his clothes in the bag and sighs, running his hand through his still damp hair.

The blue jacket is hanging in the closet and Steve takes it down. He cradles it carefully as he sits back on the foot of the bed, running his hands over the smooth fabric and the carefully placed buttons. He hadn’t thought of it, when he picked this to wear. He has so many beautiful memories of Bucky in this coat; of Bucky by his side and at his back. Of fights and war, yes, but also of days spent just the two of them, hiking through the most picturesque forests he’s ever seen. Of destruction and pain, but also of cozy villages and inviting pubs. Of nights talking in hushed tones around a campfire. Of an officer’s tent for one made to fit two. Of a burned out church in France where the moon shone in through what once was the roof and they repeated those words - _to the end of the line_ \- in front of their friends, who understood, and in front of God, who had abandoned them. Was it wrong that his brain only had space for these memories? When Bucky fell - and he did every night in Steve’s dreams - Steve only ever saw his face. The blue coat was the one thing, it seemed, his mind had saved for him. It was the only thing that was still good. Still pure. Still happy.

“Steve.”

Steve doesn’t move. He knows he should. Knows he should be surprised that she snuck up on him. On the other hand, Natasha has no problems sneaking up on him on a good day and he knows this isn’t a good day.

“Steve,” she repeats, and her voice is somewhere between concerned and disappointed. Resigned, maybe.

He drags his eyes off of where he’s holding Bucky’s coat in his lap, and moves them across the plush, beige carpet to her feet.

Steve frowns. Natasha is wearing black combat boots with a round toe and a short heel and, while they look oddly familiar, they’re not like anything he’s ever seen her wear before. His eyes drift up to drab, olive pants tucked into the boots, billowing loosely over the top. Natasha’s blood red nails are trimmed shorter than Steve is used to. She’s wearing a brown leather jacket, cinched tight at the waist with a wide lapel. He knows what’s coming, knows what this is before his eyes drag up the black tie, the starched white collar, and yet he still jumps when he sees her face: red lipstick, winged eyeliner, and her hair in perfect, soft, chestnut waves. 

_Peggy._

“Is that… Are you wearing a face mesh?” 

It’s uncanny. 

“Nope. I am wearing a wig though. And honestly, these wool pants are terrible and hot. I can’t even imagine how uncomfortable the full suit would have been. How the hell did she stand for wearing this? And why aren’t you dressed yet?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Sam told me what was going on when you came to Harlem. Sounded like you were struggling a bit. I thought maybe you could use some in-character support.”

“Peggy didn’t give Bucky the time of day. She wasn’t interested in him.”

Natasha sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

“What do you mean, you know? I thought the history books sold us as a pack of friends. I’m telling you, she couldn’t stand Bucky. Hated his guts.” 

“I know, Steve.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“He told me some things. What he could remember, when he could remember it. The rest I pieced together on my own.”

Steve feels like he’s been punched in the stomach. He’d take a step back away from her if he wasn’t sitting. “He… who told you?”

“Steve.” She sits down next to him on the bed, tries to put a hand on his thigh. He pulls back, standing and pacing the room. 

“Sit down, Steve,” Natasha chids. “Or at least put some clothes on. You look ridiculous.”

“Who told you what, Natasha? What do you know and how long have you known it?”

“I didn’t know anything. Not then. Not really. I didn’t know who he was until you did. It was too far fetched. But Yasha, he…”

“Who?” Steve interrupted. He could feel his face getting hot. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides.

“Yasha. James. We… Steve, please sit down.”

Steve crosses his arms in front of his chest and glares at her.

“We were in the Red Room together, Steve. He trained me. They messed with our memories in there… but we tried to remember. Told each other stories. It wasn’t allowed but… anything to hold on to what little we had, right? I thought… It was a code name, Steve. Like Black Widow. I didn’t realize this Winter Soldier was the same one I had worked with. I didn’t realize he was your...”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m telling you now.”

Steve huffs out a breath from his nose, gritting his teeth together, resisting the urge to punch the wall. “And?”

“And what?” 

“Who is he, to you? Who are you to him?”

“It wasn’t like that. We were friends. Comrades. Nothing more.” 

There’s something in her voice. “You’re a better liar than this, Nat.”

She laughs. “I guess I don’t want to lie to you. Yasha was like a brother to me back then. He helped me escape. When I saw him later… when he gave me this…” She pats her abdomen where Steve knows the bullet scar marred her skin. “I didn’t get a good look. Like I said, I didn’t realize he was the same person I’d known so many years ago. But I hoped. I couldn’t think of any other good reason why he wouldn’t have killed me, too.”

It’s too much. Steve gestures at her costume: “So why do you want to do this?” 

“To back you up.”

He shakes his head. “You’re lying again.”

“I’m not,” she says too quickly. “I want to back you up. I do.”

“But?”

“But… Steve. Sam told me what you said about Yasha. About James. If he doesn’t know who he is…”

“I’ve considered that.”

“Have you?”

The silence drags out between them until finally Steve sits down heavily by her side. “Yeah, I have.”

“And if he doesn’t remember you? If he’s just acting on instinct, playing out a day in the brain of Captain America?”

“Then I’ll stop.”

“Can you?”

“I can try.”

She shakes her head. “That’s not good enough, Steve. James protected me. He protected me when I had nobody else, and when getting caught protecting me could have meant getting punished.”

“So… why are you here?”

“I’m here to do what Peggy Carter always did best for Bucky Barnes?”

Steve stares at her, beyond baffled.

“I’m going to cock block you.” 

***

Here’s the thing you need to know about Steve Rogers - he has always loved being Captain America. Even when it was embarrassing and degrading and the opposite of what he had wanted to do, even when he was dancing on a stage and lifting motorcycles over his head while other men his age were sacrificing their lives on the front line, even when he’d nearly thrown up just before running on stage that first time, even when he hated the job, Steve loved _being_ Captain America. There was something about the clarity that came with putting the costume on. The direction. When Steve becomes Captain America, he understands who he is supposed to be and how he is supposed to act.

It isn’t who he’d expected to become, so many years ago. The role of Captain America certainly isn’t the life he’d been promised. He was supposed to have been the first in a new breed of supersoldier. The first. Implying that there would be a second and a third and a twentieth and a fiftieth and a hundredth. He was meant to have been part of a larger army. It wasn’t supposed to have been just him. Just him, as Colonel Phillips had happily pointed out on many occasions, was not enough. 

Putting on the uniform today is just as liberating as it always has been. He pulls the cowl over his eyes and suddenly it’s like Steve Rogers is gone. Poof. Maybe he never even existed. That would be a relief. Nobody but Bucky ever liked Steve Rogers, and everybody likes Captain America. It’s truly the ultimate exchange. 

Sliding into the role of Bucky Barnes isn’t exactly the same as becoming Captain America, but it has it’s similarities.

There’s no mask, but Steve allows his face to fall blank and neutral as Natasha trims his hair then slicks it back with a tinted pomade. _It won’t make it as dark as Bucky’s_ , she tells him, _but it’ll be close._ There’s a gentle press at his elbow and he stands easily, moving where she directs him as she helps him get dressed - first the pants, then a tight, white t-shirt (“That’s not regulation, Natasha.” “It’ll be hot in the convention hall, Steven. Trust me.”) He ducks down and allows her to ease the coat over his shoulders, then stands as she buttons up the lower buttons. 

“There.” Natasha smooths out his collar and then guides him to the mirror, and Steve lifts up his face to look.

“Fuck.”

The word falls from his lips without his intending it, and Natasha arches an eyebrow. “Language, Captain.” 

Steve allows himself a moment longer to stare at his reflection in the mirror. He looks good. He looks really good. His hair is cut short, perfectly styled with the pomade so the front swoops to the right side of his face. The coat fits perfectly - tight across the shoulders and the waist, and Steve turns slightly to admire the Howling Commandos patch on his left arm. He rolls out his shoulders, standing up a little straighter and bringing his right hand to rest on his belt buckle, then turns towards Natasha.

“You givin’ me a promotion doll? Classy dame like you, I bet you’ve got the authority to do it too.” 

The right side of Natasha’s mouth ticks up slightly and Steve is elated. It might be the biggest reaction he’s ever gotten from her. “Careful who you’re calling doll, Sergeant. Somebody might think you’re getting fresh.”

Steve grins, clicks his heels together and stands up even straighter. “Ma’am, no ma’am!” he barks out, throwing in a sloppy salute and then winking at her for good measure.

She laughs out loud at that. “Not my James, that’s for sure. But I can see why certain Captains might appreciate you.” 

Steve fights back a blush. Bucky never blushed, so he won’t either. He watches as Natasha shifts her posture, smoothly transitioning into Peggy’s powerful stance. 

“Let’s go get your boy, Sergeant Barnes. Perhaps, along the way, you can tell me some of Captain Rogers’s most embarrassing childhood secrets.”

“What?” Steve stutters, and just like that he’s Steve again. 

“You two were childhood best friends, weren’t you?” she continues in her impressive British accent, narrowing her eyes slightly. “Inseparable in both bedroom and battlefield? I’m sure you have all the best stories,”

“That’s not how that quote goes and you know it.” 

He finds himself pinned down by Natasha’s glare and, _fuck,_ Steve knows exactly what she’s doing. He can’t break character. _Can’t_. Not when it matters most. He relaxes his posture and slips into a Brooklyn accent that sounds forced to his ears but feels right on his lips. “‘Sides, I’ve never been the type to kiss and tell. You wanna find out what kinds of secrets I can keep?”

The _hmmm_ Natasha makes is polite, dismissive, and British all at the same time. Steve wants to laugh at the perfection of it, but he resists, and Natasha turns sharply on her heel and walks towards the elevator.

Steve watches her go, leaning on the doorframe of his open bedroom door, tilting his head to the side and allowing himself to admire the view for just a moment. It had been a long time since he’d gotten to admire Peggy’s no-nonsense walk, and Steve Rogers would never dare stare at Natasha’s ass in those pants. Bucky, on the other hand…

“Are you coming or not, Sergeant?” Natasha doesn’t bother turning to look at him, and Steve scurries to her side with a flirtatious grin. 

“Right behind you, Darlin’.”

Natasha rolled her eyes and Steve felt something warm bubble up inside of him.

Being Bucky was awesome.

The elevator doors open to the Avengers Tower lobby and, for a moment, Steve is terrified that his cover is blown. The convention has taken over the entirety of the fourth and fifth floors and the lobby is full of people in costume headed in. Steve is sure one of them will see him getting off of the elevator and recognize him for who he is. But it’s just like all the conventions before this one, either they don’t know who he is or they don’t care, and Steve and Natasha walk off the elevator and join the crowds of excited fans. 

Steve had read on the internet that this was the first New York convention in ten years, and several fan communities had suggested that Tony was personally trying to steal DC’s title as the largest Howling Commandos convention in the world. Looking around now, Steve doesn’t doubt it for a minute. The place is packed. Two entire floors of Avengers Headquarters, the ones usually used for entertaining important government officials and dignitaries, holding press conferences, hosting fundraisers, and occasionally kissing up to over-important SHIELD agents, are packed full of vendors, food stalls, and historical artifacts. And people. So many people. Many more of them are not in costume versus what Steve has seen at previous conventions, and he’s sure that at least half of the people are there just for the chance to get inside Avengers Tower. 

In addition to the usual vendors and lecturers, Tony has filled several rooms with historical artifacts that he must have pulled out of Howard’s personal collection. They breeze past a room holding several prototypes for his shield alongside panels from the project rebirth lab. A sign outside another room proudly proclaims “Showing All the Captain America Movies - Including the Previously Lost Third Film!!” with a timetable underneath. 

“It wasn’t lost,” Steve mutters under his breath. “It was so bad I wouldn’t let them release it.” 

“You wouldn’t?” Natasha asks with a faint smile. “I didn’t realize anyone cared what you thought, _darlin’._ ”

Steve resists grimacing, forcing himself to grin instead. “Sweetheart, I have more sway than you could imagine.” He swings his hips as he walks away, for emphasis.

“Yes, I can see that you do.” 

Another room invites guests to visit “The World Exposition of Tomorrow,” and Steve can’t help but stop and duck his head in. 

“Really?” Natasha asks, following him into the room. “This is going to take you away from your mission?”

Steve smiles at her fondly. How can he explain, without breaking character, that this was exactly the sort of thing that would pull Bucky away from his mission. “Our last night… my last night with Stevie, before I headed off to war and he headed off to be a goddamned science experiment, we spent it here. Told him we were headed to the future…” Steve trails off, and Natasha rests her hand softly above his elbow.

“Didn’t realize how right I was, I guess.”

“Sergeant!” A voice booms from the crowd. “Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes! Long time no see.” Steve turns, wide eyed, only to be met with a sight that takes his breath away for the second time that day.

_Howard._

_Howard Fucking Stark._

_Holy Shit._

Tony is dressed in a black tuxedo with a too-wide bowtie and a red pocket square. Either he’s the one who’s really wearing the photostatic veil, or he’s shaved off his trademark beard and all that’s left is a thin mustache. It’s Howard. 

“How’s the future treating you?” Tony asks.

“Haven’t gotten my flying car yet,” Steve calls back. “Promises were made, Stark.” 

“Never seemed like a priority.”

“Well make it one.”

Tony laughs as he walks over to them. It’s not Howard’s laugh… but it’s not Tony’s either and Steve has a flash of guilt when he wonders how many times Tony actually heard his own father laugh.

“Anything for the good Captain’s roomate,” Tony says, with a grin that is definitely his own. “Roomates, right? That’s what we’re calling it.”

“Howard.” Natasha’s voice is a warning.

“What?” Tony asks innocently. “As far as I can see, there’s nothing wrong with two men who are roommates getting a little fondue every now and then.” 

“Tony!” Steve gasps, looking around. Nobody is paying attention to them.

“I think you mean Howard,” Tony says, stepping in even closer. He drops his voice “And I’ll say it again. There is nothing wrong with two men fonduing, even if one of them is a former brainwashed assassin who may or may not be responsible for my untimely demise. That’s on the people who did it to him and no one else.”

Steve blinks back tears. Bucky wouldn’t cry. “Thanks, Howard.”

“No problem, kid. Go get ‘em.”

It’s not a thing Howard would have ever said.

They make their way through the maze of exhibition halls and people, finally ending up at the sign in table for the costume contest. The line is long, but it moves quickly and Steve takes the time to look at the competition. 

They’ve got nothing on him. 

He makes eyes at some chorus girls, debates rifles with another Bucky in his dress uniform, and even winks at a Dernier impersonator who he catches checking out his ass.

Bucky would have done the same. 

Also the guy was really cute. 

By the time they’re checked in and headed backstage, Steve feels like he can do no wrong. He feels better than he’s felt since his first asthma-free breath. He’s ready. He’s got this. 

The judging is simple. All of the Buckys are taken out on stage and asked a few questions - easy things where the answer doesn’t really matter. They’re not trying to stump anyone; it’s not about how much you know, but how well you can answer in character. A few Buckys stutter. One curses. Bucky would never curse in front of a crowd. There are women and children present. It’s ridiculous. 

Then it’s Steve’s turn to answer and, of course it’s Tony’s turn to ask the question, because Steve’s life isn’t enough of a soap opera and he’s pretty sure Tony has rigged the whole thing anyway. But he smiles Bucky’s smile and he braces himself.

“After Kreischberg, you had the opportunity for an honorable discharge. You could have gone home. Instead, you chose to stay and join the group that would later be known as the Howling Commandos, led by Captain America. Why?”

Steve smiles Bucky’s smile. The question is harder than most, and he wonders if Tony is trying to trip him up, or if Tony knew he had the answer to this already given to him - written in his eidetic memory forever. Or maybe, just maybe, it's possible that Tony is throwing him a bone, helping him to convince the real Bucky that Steve is real, and really _his_ Steve, because nobody on the planet would know the one-hundred-percent true answer that Bucky had given to him and him alone.

“I didn’t follow Captain America. I never would. The little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight. I followed him. I only ever followed him.” Steve pauses dramatically. He can see other contestants watching from the wings. He can see Bucky watching, and he locks eyes with him. “‘Cause I’m with him to the end of the line.”

The groups are called back one at a time to announce scores, and Steve is hustled on stage to stand with all the other winners. Bucky is in the middle with Nat on his right and Steve standing on his left, and when they clasp hands to take a bow Steve knows exactly what he needs to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone wants to play dress up!!
> 
> Thank you again for your comments on the last two chapters. I'm tearing through this fast... the last two will be up tomorrow <3


	6. Because of you, I'm running out of reasons to cry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS IT! THE MOMENT YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!!!!
> 
> I am so excited to finally unveil the beautiful art that profoundalpacakitten created for this fic. I love it more than I can express!

Natasha walking towards Bucky in the green-room is the most surreal thing Steve has ever seen, and that’s coming in a day that has been nothing but surreal. Bucky stands the moment he sees Natasha, only he’s moving like Steve and he’s dressed like Steve and Natasha looks so much like Peggy it’s painful. 

“Steve,” Natasha says, holding out her hand to him.

“Peg,” he replies, standing to take it. “You look amazing, as always.” Is this how Steve had looked to Bucky? The wistfulness in his eyes? The breathless tone in his voice? Is this how Bucky had felt? Filled with jealousy and loss watching the man he loved focus all his attention on someone so beautiful? 

“Congratulations on tonight.” Natasha is still holding Bucky’s hand as she stares up into his eyes.

“Oh, this? It’s nothing. Just another publicity stunt in Captain America’s tour.”

“Is that all it is?” Natasha narrows her eyes and her voice drops to just below a whisper. Steve’s enhanced hearing is all that allows him to make out the words.

“Где ты сегодня вечером?”

Bucky blinks at her and, for just a second, his mask slips. “С тобой, конечно. Всегда с тобой.”

Natasha smiles Peggy’s smile. “Perhaps a dance later, Captain?”

“I wouldn’t dream of missing it.”

Steve hardly has time to catch his breath before Natasha is sauntering back towards him, walking Peggy’s walk. She stays in character, of course. Doesn’t make eye contact. Doesn’t acknowledge him in any way. Except, just as she’s passing, Steve hears her mutter “he’s fine. Go get your boy.” 

_Fine? Bucky is Fine?_

He exhales a shaky breath, rolls out his shoulders, and swaggers towards the man in blue sitting on the couch. “Hey sweetheart,” he says, pulling as much Brooklyn into his voice as possible as he sits down next to Bucky. “You look real nice tonight. Always so pretty, doll.” Bucky takes a sharp breath, jerking his head up to look at Steve, and Steve bites his bottom lip the way he’s seen Bucky do hundreds of times. The way he’s dreamed about thousands of times. The way that keeps him up at night. “The only thing better looking than you in that uniform, is you out of it, sweetheart.”

And, ok, he’s laying it on pretty thick. But he’s also fairly sure that Bucky used that exact same line on him once, so at least it’s thick on brand. 

“What are you playing at?” Bucky asks suspiciously. Steve can hear himself in the question. 

“Who’s playin’? Can’t a guy tell his best fella how good he’s lookin’ without having some ulterior motive?” Steve can see the wheels turning in Bucky’s brain, as he struggles to come up with an answer and stay in character.

“I‘m not in the mood, Buck.”

 _Oh._ Steve isn’t prepared for that and now he’s the one who is stuck. Bucky would never keep pushing after Steve told him to stop.

They sit in silence for a moment, Steve’s heart pounding in his chest the entire time. He’s so afraid that Bucky’s going to stand up and walk away and he’ll never get this chance again, and he feels Bucky start to stir just as inspiration strikes. “Hey Stevie?”

Bucky stares at him, wide eyed, and Steve thinks there might be something there that’s a little like terror. It’s the same look Bucky was giving him in the coffee shop just before he ran. 

Steve forces himself to continue, even though all he wants is to hold Bucky as tightly as he can and never let him go. “You ever wonder what the future’s gonna be like? What it’d be like to go there together?”

Bucky’s mouth drops open. “Guess I never really did,” he finally manages to spit out after a long pause. “Do you think about that?”

“Yeah,” Steve says softly, almost wistfully. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the past couple years.”

“What do you think about?”

“Well,” Steve swallows hard. “I think you might get there fairly easily, all things considered. I mean, nothing’s ever been easy for us, and it will seem terrible at the time, but in retrospect, it’s just like falling asleep and then waking up and it’s seventy years later.” Bucky is staring at him, and Steve is feeling brave. He reaches out, takes Bucky’s right hand, and holds it gently in his own. It’s warm. “Me, on the other hand, I don’t think my trip is going to go quite as smoothly.”

“No,” Bucky agrees, his voice barely a whisper.

“You’ll blame yourself, of course, because you didn’t catch me.”

“No,” Bucky says, a bit louder this time.

“No?” Steve echoes, questioningly. 

“You… I shouldn’t blame myself. There’s nothing I could have done.”

“You could have jumped after me.”

Bucky shakes his head. “That wouldn’t have helped anything. Then we’d both be Winter Soldiers, and nobody would have been left to save us.”

“But at least we’d be together.”

“We’re together now, aren’t we?”

Steve feels like his heart is going to explode. He squeezes Bucky’s hand gently. “Yeah, I suppose we are.” 

“I think…” Bucky’s voice falters, and he tries again. “I think that you’re right, though. Your trip to the future is going to be a lot rougher than mine. It’s...”

“Tell me,” Steve prompts. “It’s ok, Stevie. I can take it.” 

Bucky nods once, then continues. “Well, there were some bad people and they’ll make you do some bad things. I’ll certainly have heard all about that.” He stops to take a deep, shaky breath. “But it’s not the worst of it.”

All the happy feelings vanish in an instant. Steve knows all about Hydra - about the things they did to Bucky. If there was something worse… Steve’s not sure he can take it after all. 

“First the Red Room, then Hydra… They’ll mess with your mind, with your memories. Make you forget things you knew and make you remember things that never happened, until you feel like down is up and up is down and your brain is swiss cheese and nothing makes sense because you don’t know which of your memories you can believe.”

“What kinds of things?” Steve almost doesn’t want to know. Is this why Bucky doesn’t remember him?

“They’ll give you memories of hurting people, Buck. Memories of hurting... well... me. Of killing me. Of doing other things with me and… _and to me_ .” The last three words are whispered. “When… When you see me in the future, the first time you recognize me, my face will be all bloody and bruised and you’ll think…” a small sob escapes Bucky’s throat. “...you’ll think that you killed me, and you won’t be sure whether or not you’ve done it before. You’ll be so scared that you’ve hurt me. That you’ve hurt me before, that you’re hurting me now, and that you’ll hurt me again in the future. You’ll be scared that hurting me might just be a part of who you are - that it’s all you know how to do. So you’ll run away, even though you know that running away hurts me too. You’ll run away and you won’t know how to stop running, and you’ll know that you’re still hurting me, every minute of every day. And the worst thing… The worst thing, _Buck_.” The word sounds forced and wrong.”You won’t even know what we are to each other. You’ll think you know, you’ll hope and you’ll pray, but you won’t be sure.”

Steve blinks back tears from his own eyes, because he’s supposed to be Bucky and Bucky was always the strong one. “Then you’ll have to remind me, sweetheart.” 

“What?”

“If I can’t remember who we are to each other, then you’ll have to remind me. Because if there’s one thing I know, it’s that you can’t live without me. Never could. Never wanted to. There’s a reason you put that plane down in the ocean without even trying to get out. Without Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers is nothing.”

“Yeah?” Bucky’s voice is so hopeful.

“Yeah.”

“How could I remind you?”

“Well,” Steve thinks for a moment. “You could let me kiss you.” 

“Here? In front of all these people?”

“I won’t if you’re not comfortable with it.”

“There isn’t any evidence that we ever kissed. You looked for it. You wanted to know if your memories were lying to you. If we were kissing, we weren’t doing it in front of people.”

“Things were different then.” Steve slides closer to Bucky. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Tony mingling, casually and effortlessly keeping people away from them. A few people are staring. It doesn’t matter. “We couldn’t kiss in front of people when we were kids. We could have gotten into a lot of trouble. It’s not like that now. People are more accepting.”

“What about other things?” Bucky seems to be struggling now, his brow creasing, his body starting to tremble. “What if you can remember doing other things to me.” 

“What kind of things?”

“Bad things. Things you know I didn’t…” his voice falters and he stares down at his hands. “Things you know I didn’t want. Things that are wrong.”

Steve struggles to find his words - hates that they have to have the conversation like this. Hates that he can’t just say what he wants. But he’s not going to be the one to break character - not if he can help it - not if there’s a single chance that doing so could ruin this. He’s not letting Bucky out of his sight ever again. “I can promise that I have never done a single thing to you that you didn’t want. Not once. Not ever. That’s not real.”

Bucky shakes his hand. “You did. I know it’s real. I was small and I said that I didn’t want it and then later when I was big… It’s wrong Buck, for you to make me do _that_ . To make me _sin_ like that _._ ”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Steve traces his thumb over Bucky’s lower lip, feeling it’s plump weight. And just like Steve would do, Bucky sucks it softly into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it once, and then releasing it. “You’re not remembering everything. When you were little... Do you remember being little?”

Bucky nods. “You loved me when I was little.”

“And you loved me too, Steve. So much. When you were little, you were an idiot.” And Bucky can’t help but laugh at that - a small snort that is distinctly Bucky’s. Steve clings to it. Chases it. “You were so angry all the time and you saw that as… as something else. You saw letting someone do _that_ to you as meaning you were somehow less than a man. That it made you weak. You wouldn’t have it. And me,” Steve affixes Bucky with a stern glare. “I was overprotective sometimes. I thought I might hurt you, so I didn’t try to convince you that you were wrong. But you wanted, Steve. Even then you wanted so badly. There was nothing you wanted as much as you wanted me to love on you… you dreamt about it. Every night you imagined what it would feel like to come apart underneath me, to feel me. You wanted all of it. Then, when you got bigger and we were in the war, it didn’t seem to matter as much anymore. You didn’t have anything to prove, and I knew I couldn’t hurt you, and we were both so afraid of dyin’ every damn day. And you had this big officer’s tent where nobody was gonna bother us. We could do whatever we wanted, however we wanted. But you always wanted it, Steve. From the moment you knew it was an option, you wanted me inside of you.”

Bucky looks up at him, pupils blown wide, eyes nothing more than a thin ring of blue-grey circling the blackness. He licks his lips again, and Steve can’t resist. He reaches out his hand and cups Bucky’s face, tracing his thumb along Bucky’s jaw. “Please, Stevie. Please can I kiss you?”

“Yeah. Yes. Please.”

Steve groans, can’t help himself, and he’s sure people are watching them now but he can’t be bothered to care. He slides even closer to Bucky on the couch, drags his hand through Bucky’s hair, and pulls him in for the kiss.

For a moment, it’s awkward. Their noses clash together and Bucky’s teeth scrape against his, and Steve doesn’t understand. They’ve always fit together perfectly. It doesn’t make sense. He pulls back slightly, searching Bucky’s face for some sort of an answer when…

The edges of Bucky’s mouth lift up in the faintest of smiles, and something in his eyes sparkles and suddenly Steve knows what’s happening.

Bucky is kissing like him. 

He’s waiting for Steve to kiss like Bucky. 

Steve lifts an eyebrow in response, wordlessly accepting the challenge, then dives back in, tilting his head in the wrong direction and attacking Bucky’s lips with his own. He digs into his memory, thinking. What was it about Bucky’s kisses… What are the things that still haunt his dreams? 

He pours his answers into the kiss, confidence and passion, tenderness and barely restrained need. The flick of Bucky’s tongue as it requested entrance into Steve’s mouth, the way Bucky punctuated each long kiss with two shorter ones, the way he bit at Steve’s lips when he was especially desperate. Steve gives Bucky everything that Bucky had ever given him, pouring his longing and passion and need into the press of their bodies together.

And Bucky does exactly what Steve would have done. He takes it, gladly, moaning into Steve’s mouth and melting under Steve’s heat. His hands scrabble at Steve’s chest, grasping onto the lapel of Steve’s jacket, clinging to him, needy and shaking and for just a moment Steve swears that he - that Bucky - _that the Winter Soldier_ \- feels small. 

He has no clue how long it’s been when they pull apart. Tony is staring at them slack-jawed. He’s pretty sure the woman cosplaying Lorainne is recording them on her phone. Steve can hear Bucky’s heart pounding in his chest. 

“Ste… Buck?”

“Yeah, Stevie?”

“Well… I mean, this is Avengers Tower, right?” 

“Yeah.”

“And I’m an Avenger, aren’t I?”

Steve smiles. “Yeah, you are sweetheart.”

“So… does that mean I have a place to stay here?” Bucky swallows hard, looking down and then up again, peering up at Steve from under his eyelashes. It’s a look Steve knows well, having practiced it in the mirror for hours. It never failed to get him what he wanted from Bucky.

It wouldn’t fail now.

Steve laughs. “You sure do, Stevie. A full floor, even. The bed alone is bigger than our old apartment. You should feel how smooth the sheets are.”

Bucky drags his teeth over his lower lip, and that was his move not Steve’s. Another crack in his armor, and Steve needs more of it. 

“You want to take me to it, sweetheart?” Steve feels like he is floating.

“You sure it’s ok?”

“It’s more than ok for me, if it’s ok for you.” 

“Yeah, Buck. Yeah. It’s ok for me. I really want to take you to it.”

Steve stands up and holds out a hand to Bucky, who takes it and allows himself to be pulled up to his feet. Steve throws his arm around Bucky’s shoulder, pulling him close in the way Bucky had done to him so many times when he was smaller. Bucky struggles, playfully, laughing. “Knock it off, will ya? I’m not that small anymore.”

“You’ll always be that small to me, Stevie,” Steve says wistfully. “You’ll always be that idiot from Brooklyn, getting his ass kicked in back alleys when he shoulda just run away.”

“Jerk.” 

“Punk.” 

They’re out of the greenroom, Tony and Natasha holding back the crowd that wants to form around them, and Steve’s got his arm wrapped around Bucky’s waist, guiding him to the elevator. “Is it this one?” He asks, as he pushes the thumb-print activated button.

“Top secret,” Bucky replies. “Avengers eyes only.”

“Is that so?” Steve grins at him as the doors open and they step on. “Where to, then?”

“Captain America’s floor, I suppose.”

“Captain America’s floor it is, then,” Steve confirms for JARVIS’s sake. The elevator starts to move and, for just a moment, Steve starts to panic, unsure of what happens next. Unsure of what Bucky would do in this moment.

And then it hits him. 

Bucky would do whatever he needed to do to make sure that Steve was ok. 

Steve steps in close to Bucky, crowding him up against the wall of the elevator. “You ok, sweetheart? This is a lot. Don’t want you to get too anxious now. You need one of your asthma cigarettes?”

“Come on Buck, don’t be like that,” Bucky says, giving Steve a small, playful push. It’s not enough to move him at all. “You know I haven’t needed those since the serum.”

“Just trying to take care of my best guy is all. You know I worry, Stevie.” 

“Take care of me other ways, Buck,” Bucky replies, want heavy in his voice. 

“Yeah, sweetheart.” Steve moves even closer, pressing his body against Bucky’s. “I can do that for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, please, please give profoundalpacakitten some love!! The final two chapters will be out tomorrow night!


	7. When the friends are gone, when the party's over

The elevator slides to a stop, the doors open, and Steve is backing Bucky out and onto his floor before he has time to think about it. His hands fly to Bucky’s coat, and it’s only then that he really takes a moment to notice what Bucky is wearing. It’s Steve’s first real Captain America uniform - the one he wore with the Howling Commandos. Blue pants tucked into brown boots, blue jacket with red and white at the waist, and the white star. Bucky seems to have forgone the rifle for the night, which makes sense because getting those things into conventions is more of a pain than it’s worth, but he’s still got the criss-crossed harness across his back where the shield should rest. It’s noticeably empty. 

“You forget your shield somewhere, sweetheart?”

“Gave it to a fan,” Bucky replies with a shrug and a wink. “Wasn’t the real one, of course.” 

“Of course.” Steve kisses along Bucky’s jawline, slowly backing him towards the bedroom. “How do you want to do this?”

He realizes the mistake the moment the words leave his mouth, even before Bucky freezes under his touch. It’s not that they only had one way - they’d done a lot before the war and everything remaining during - it’s that Bucky would have never needed to ask. He could read Steve better than Steve could read himself, always knew what he wanted, always knew just the right way to give it to him. 

That isn’t the only problem, and Steve hates that it takes Bucky practically cradling his left arm for him to realize it. He allows himself a moment of panic, then sets his jaw. His hand mirrors Bucky’s movement, fingering the winged swoop on his left bicep, reminding himself who he’s supposed to be in this moment. Bucky Barnes always knew exactly what Steve Rogers needed, and they’ve been here before. It’s not exactly the same, but Steve can still remember the body horror, the shame, the guilt, the fear that he was so different from what he’d been - that there was no way Bucky could still want him.

Bucky always knew exactly what to say.

“Sweetheart,” Steve says, stepping back into Bucky’s space. “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

Bucky says nothing, but holds himself tighter, pulling away from Steve without really moving. 

“Stevie.” Steve’s brain is moving quickly. He finds the memory he wants and settles into the role. “I know the serum changed you. I know it feels strange, feels wrong, feels like it isn’t you. But you gotta know how perfect you are. No matter what you look like, no matter what someone did to you,” (and Bucky had said “what some evil scientist did to you,” but Steve suspects the minor change is better than the reminder), “I know you’re still that same ornery punk on the inside.”

Bucky laughs, and for a moment it’s Bucky’s laugh and nobody else’s - wide grin, eyes cast down as he shakes his head from side to side. And then Bucky looks up and his mood shifts. His shoulders square as he lifts his head, his smile looks more reserved and he squints his eyes slightly, and Steve can’t help but marvel at how well this man has him pegged. “I’m nothing like how I was,” he says, and they’re Steve’s words on his tongue.

“And I still love you. ‘Cause I’m with you…”

“To the end of the line,” Bucky finishes the sentence with a catch in his throat.

“Need me to prove it to you?” Steve asks.

“Maybe.” 

“You can always stop me if you want. You know that, right?” And Steve’s going off script now. This isn’t how the exchange went but it’s important that he says it. And it’s not out of character; Bucky did a lot of things to Steve that needed a safeword (not that they’d known the word for it at the time) - and Steve to Bucky - and they always made the other check in before they got started. “Do you remember what you say, if you want me to stop?”

“Rusted” Bucky says without missing a beat, and that’s the thing that almost does Steve in. He wants to wrap Bucky in his arms and drop to his knees and beg Bucky to fuck him, because that’s Bucky’s safeword and not his, and despite Natasha saying that Bucky was ok this is the first time that Steve’s truly believed it without a shadow of a doubt. 

Bucky must notice Steve’s expression, because something in him shifts. He smiles slightly, hunches his shoulders forward, makes himself smaller before blinking up at Steve from below long eyelashes. “Not gonna need it though.”

“Oh yeah?” He thinks about how Bucky would react in this moment, then begins to kiss along his jawline, working his fingers onto the coat’s hidden zipper along one of the shield straps and pulling it slowly down. “Why’s that, sweetheart?”

“Because I can do this all day.”

Steve groans, yanks the zipper down, and pushes the red, white, and blue, star-spangled coat off of Bucky’s shoulders and onto the ground. “Doesn’t matter what they did to you,” he says, falling back on lines Bucky has said to him. “It doesn’t matter, because you’ll always be beautiful, no matter what. Perfect. My best guy.” 

Bucky allows himself to be moved towards the bedroom, his own hands working down the buttons on Steve’s chest until both costumes are on the floor and Steve is pushing Bucky down onto the bed. “Missed you so much, sweetheart,” Steve says, lips and tongue trailing down Bucky’s white undershirt, getting it wet. He pauses, mouths at one of Bucky’s nipples through the shirt, then clamps his teeth around it. Bucky’s hips jerk up off the bed.

“Shhh… none of that now, Stevie. Huh?” Steve wraps a hand around Bucky’s hip. “Just let me love on you a bit, ok? I’ll give you what you want. Just let me have mine first.” He rucks up Bucky’s shirt with his free hand, exposing olive skin and toned abs. “Perfect,” Steve whispers, tucking the shirt up under Bucky’s armpits.

“Don’t,” Bucky whimpers, and Steve can feel his skin getting warm. Is Bucky Barnes really blushing, and just from the knowledge of what’s coming next? 

Steve smiles into his skin. “Don’t what, huh? You don’t want me to have this?” He brings his hands up and cups Bucky’s pecs. They’re nowhere near as big as his own, but they’re still a nice handful. His fingers brush the metal on Bucky’s left side and Bucky winces, looking quickly away.

“Hey!” Steve brings him back. “You look at me right now,  _ Steve _ . Don’t hide from me. Don’t hide from this.”

Bucky’s eyes lock onto his, and they’re just a little wet.

“You’re mine, you got that? You’ve always been mine, and you’ll always be mine. And if I want to admire your tits,” and Steve is proud of himself for saying it without flinching, “then you’re going to lie there and let me do it, do you understand?”

Bucky nods, weakly.

“You show up with this great big new body and an amazing rack, and then you’re going to tell me I can’t even admire your tits,” Steve mutters under his breath, and he catches Bucky smiling faintly despite himself. He’d said those same words to Steve two weeks after Steve had rescued him from the front. 

“You gonna let me make you feel good?” Steve continues, finally leaving Bucky’s chest and working his way down Bucky’s abs, kissing and licking across every inch of skin, across his waist and his hip bones, pushing his pants down as he goes until Bucky’s cock springs free. 

Steve would be lying if he said he’d never used his eidetic memory to jerk off while remembering precisely what it felt like to have Bucky’s mouth on his dick. He uses that skill now, giving just as he’s gotten, swallowing Bucky down, taking him all at once, fast and dirty, before pulling back and lavishing kitten licks across the head and down the shaft. Bucky squirms, the sensation moving quickly from too much to not enough, and Steve can’t help but laugh. “It’s been a long time, sweetheart. You forget how good I can make you feel?”

He licks up Bucky’s shaft, then closes his lips around him again, taking just the head into his mouth this time, hollowing out his cheeks and humming slightly, using every trick that Bucky has ever used on him. One hand works Bucky’s balls gently, while the other roams across his chest, tweaking his nipples and petting softly down his side and over his hip. It had always been Bucky’s goal to get the first one out of Steve as quickly as possible; sometimes he’d claim he was timing himself, trying to beat his previous record. And yeah, they knew Steve could go multiple times because of the serum - they probably should have wondered why Bucky suddenly could go more than once, too - but they were young and in love and at war, and they didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. 

Steve slows his motions and looks up. Bucky’s head has rolled back on the pillow, eyes towards the ceiling, back arched slightly in pleasure. Steve slaps him on the thigh to get his attention, then locks eyes with him. 

Bucky’s face is everything. Eyes wide, mouth slack with want and pleasure, pupils blown. Steve licks his lips, maintaining eye contact as he once again wraps those lips around Bucky’s shaft and sinks slowly back down to the root.

He’s pretty sure Bucky’s orgasm takes them both by surprise. Steve had normally warned Bucky, and Bucky always warned Steve, so the fact that he’s suddenly coming down Steve’s throat is unexpected but not unwelcome. Steve hums happily and swallows as best as he can, feeling Bucky writhe beneath him. 

Steve doesn’t let up until Bucky pushes him away, twitchy and overstimulated, and then he sets to work licking up everything that had escaped from his mouth. “Still sweet as sugar, Doll. Surprised nobody tries to ration you.”

Bucky drops his head back onto the mattress with a groan, and Steve smiles into his skin as he begins again to kiss along his abs and hips. Up across his chest and over his shoulders, in the small of his neck and down his arms. His hands. His fingers. His legs. His feet. Having Bucky with him feels so good. So right. Steve loses himself in the taste of Bucky’s skin, the feel of it against his lips, the smell of his body. He has no idea how long it’s been when Bucky interrupts.

“Steve…” Bucky groans, and Steve is so far gone that he doesn’t even notice the name.

“Yeah, sweetheart? What do you want? Anything. Anything, and I’ll give it to you.”

“You bein’ you now? Because… shit!” Bucky gasps as Steve runs his tongue along the crease of his hip. “Because I woulda’ fucked you 30 minutes ago.”

Steve freezes in his spot, the realization of what Bucky has said finally hitting him. “You woulda… Buck?”

“Yeah, Steve?”

“You know who I am?”

Bucky pushes up onto his elbows and scowls at him. “You gonna suck off some guy who doesn’t even know who you are? I know you’re reckless, Stevie, but that’s somethin’ else even for you.”

“If it’s you I would. Bucky!” Steve presses kisses to Bucky’s jaw, his chin, the corner of his lips. “At the other conventions, and in the coffee shop. You didn’t…”

“Shhh…” Bucky runs a hand soothingly down Steve’s side, hooks it under his shirt and runs his thumb over Steve’s hip. “I know. I’m so sorry, baby. They messed with my head. Tried to get me to forget you. It never fully took, but…”

“It’s ok,” Steve says, near frantic now, tears streaming down his face as he kisses across Bucky’s cheekbone. “It’s ok. You know me now and that’s all that matters. Bucky?” 

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

“How do you know me now?”

“Guess you just reminded me.” 

Steve lets out a breathy whimper that quickly turns into a moan as Bucky begins to kiss back in earnest. 

“I like how you look in my clothes,” Bucky says, pushing up Steve’s shirt. “But you’re wearing too many of them.”

Steve rips his shirt in his haste to get it off. 

“Eager. Fuck, Stevie.” Bucky rolls them over so he’s on top of Steve, taking his own shirt the rest of the way off before starting in on Steve’s pants. “You mind if I be me for a while? You were doin’ a real good job up until you got distracted by all the kissin’, and I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate it. You’ve got me pegged, sweetheart. Really, you do.” Bucky pushes Steve’s knees up towards the ceiling and then settles between them. “But hearing you talk about how much you’ve always wanted me inside of you made it so I can’t think about anything else.”

“Please,” Steve whimpers, high and breathy. His arm flails as he reaches for the side of the bed; it’s too far away but he doesn’t want to move out from underneath Bucky. “Lube.” He points at the bedside table.

“I remember you bein’ a bit more eloquent.” Bucky grins at him and shifts to open the drawer, retrieving the small bottle. “Guess I better cut back on all the speeches when I’m in costume. The real Captain America apparently now communicates only in single words and grunts.” Steve hears the click of the cover, and soon Bucky’s body is back over his, hot and heavy, his hand trailing down Steve’s chest and settling between his legs. “‘M gonna have to update a lot of my act, I think. Forgot how needy you get when nobody’s givin’ it to ya right. Think maybe you wouldn’t have been such a cantankerous little shit back when you were little if you woulda just let me fuck you the way we both wanted.”

Steve opens his mouth to argue, but before he can get a word out Bucky is pressing a thick finger past his tight ring and any complaints Steve has die on the tip of his tongue. “Buck…”

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

“More. Please.”

Bucky hums, soft and thoughtful. “I mean, I would. But you seemed to think all I should want to do is kiss, and I do have gaps in my memory sometimes. Maybe I should take it slow.”

“Jerk.” The word has no bite to it.

“Punk.” Bucky slides a second finger in alongside the first and Steve groans, the stretch just on the right side of painful. He slowly works his fingers as he talks, kissing along Steve’s thighs between words. “I missed you so much, Stevie. I missed you even when I didn’t know what I was missin’.” 

“God, I missed you, Buck. Didn’t know how I was gonna make it some days.”

“You don’t need to worry about that, ok? I’m here, and I’m not goin’ anywhere. I’m gonna burn whatever’s left of Hydra to the ground to make sure they don’t keep me from you again.” He pulls his fingers out, and almost immediately Steve feels the solid press of Bucky’s cock against his hole. It’s too soon, but he knows that neither of them wants to wait. 

Steve reaches up, wraps his hands around a stubbled jawline as Bucky presses into him. “We’re gonna.”

“What?” A bead of sweat rolls down Bucky’s forehead as he inches forward, carving out space for himself.

“We, Buck. We’re gonna burn down Hydra. You and me. Together.” 

“Together,” Bucky repeats as he bottoms out, balls slapping against Steve’s ass. He drops to his forearms, framing Steve’s face and kissing him softly, a light press of lips that quickly turns deeper; teeth and tongues and heat as Bucky claims Steve’s mouth as his own, not slowing until Steve pushes him off slightly with a grin.

“What?” Bucky asks, a look of confusion crossing his face. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.” Steve is sure the smile splitting his face makes it pretty clear that he is not hurt. “You just said I got your characterization wrong. ‘To much kissing, not enough fucking,’ was the quote, if I recall correctly.”

Bucky glares at Steve fondly, then rolls his hips. The smooth glide of Bucky’s warmth inside of him sends sparks across Steve’s spine. 

“This what you’re lookin’ for, sweetheart?” Bucky does it again - a fluid motion, tender and loving and filled with a lifetime of missed moments. It’s goddamn near perfect, and Steve is confident that Bucky would make love to him like this for hours, slow and unrushed like they never could, a rebuke against the universe that kept them apart for as long as it did. A targeted strike against everything they were never allowed to have. A promise of things yet to come.

He’s also confident Bucky knows it is one-hundred-percent not what he’s looking for.

“Geez, Buck. I put a lot of work into that costume. Don’t you think you could put your back into it, at least as a thank you?”

Bucky snaps his hips, and it’s only Steve’s super-soldier reflexes that keep him from banging his head against the headboard. “You’re an ungrateful pain in my ass, Steven Grant Rogers.”

“Who’s the pain in whose ass, now?” Steve manages to tease back, before Bucky pulls back and slams into him again, knocking the wind out of his lungs and knocking a chunk of plaster off the wall. He makes a mental note to send Tony a fruit basket. 

“Must not be doing my job good enough,” Bucky grunts, driving into him again, and Steve’s got both hands up over his head now, bracing himself. “If you can still make smart-ass comments like that.”

It’s perfect. It’s everything, and Steve can feel his orgasm building, even as Bucky is working to pick up speed and strength. He squeezes his eyes shut, tries to hold back but it’s so good. So perfect. Everything he’s needed for so long. Bucky is there and he’s real and he’s strong and Steve is coming, untouched, and with a sustained shout of Bucky’s name.

Steve wakes up an undetermined amount of time later, warm and clean, wrapped in his soft duvet and Bucky’s firm embrace. He shifts slightly, and Bucky’s arms clamp down around him.

“‘M still sleepin’.”

“Buck,” Steve says softly, trying to at least move so they’re facing each other. Something in Bucky’s left arm whirs as it tightens down, and Steve’s dick jumps in response. Bucky shouldn’t be able to tell, plastered as he is to Steve’s back, but Steve can feel the smile against his skin and knows that - somehow - Bucky knows.

“What would people say, huh?” Bucky’s breath is warm on Steve’s skin. 

“Homosexuality is ok now, Buck. Sure, some people wouldn’t like it, but the majority…”

“Nah, not that.” Bucky releases his near death-grip on Steve, who rolls over to look him in the eye, brushing a lock of dark hair off of his face. Bucky looks good like this, soft and sleepy. “I mean, what would they say if they knew that Steve Rogers was a goddamned pillow princess who likes it rough. Makin’ me do so much work over here, all by myself, while you just lay there like a lump. Ain’t very Captain America of you, Stevie.”

Steve kissed him on the corner of his mouth. “Delegation is an important part of leadership. How do you think I made Captain so fast?”

“Performance enhancing drugs.” 

The words are muttered low enough that maybe someone without enhanced hearing wouldn’t catch them, but Steve does. He huffs out in mock annoyance and tries to shift his body in a way that shows displeasure, but Bucky holds him tight and hauls him closer and Steve’s thigh gets pressed up against Bucky’s rapidly thickening cock.

“You’re insatiable,” Steve says, as if he’s not just as bad. 

“You complaining?” 

“Not a bit.”

“Don’t even know what time it is.” Bucky’s hands are on Steve’s ass, pulling him impossibly closer, and Steve can’t help but rut up into the crease of his hip.

“Does it matter?”

“‘M hungry,” Bucky says, words half muffled into Steve’s neck. One hand slides between their bodies to grope at Steve’s left pec. “You claim I’m your best fella, and then you bring me back to your place without even buying me dinner first? It’s like you never even met James Buchanan Barnes. The history books say he was a real gentleman.”

“The history books missed some key details.” Steve hooks a leg over Bucky’s thigh, then rolls them easily so Bucky is on his back with Steve looking down on him.

“Yeah. They all say you’re a paragon of virtue and goodness.” 

“You saying I’m not good, Buck?” Steve nuzzled down Bucky’s chest, savoring in the taste of slightly salty skin.

Bucky groaned. “You’re the best, sweetheart. But you’re also a punk.”

“Yeah,” Steve replies between wet, sloppy kisses over Bucky’s hips. “But I’m your punk.”

“Fuck yeah you are,” Bucky starts to say, but he’s cut off by his own moan as Steve swallows him down.


	8. We will still belong to each other (AKA: The Post Credit Scene)

At first nobody notices, and that really is Steve’s favorite part about the entire convention scene. Always has been. There’s nowhere else where he can walk around with what feels like complete anonymity. Maybe it’s that nobody can even fathom the concept of Steve Rogers showing up at a Howling Commandos convention. Maybe people do notice and they don’t care. Maybe everyone is just too wrapped up in their own good time, making their own fun, to even bother worrying about who the guy cosplaying Bucky Barnes next to them really is.

When someone does realize, it’s Bucky that they see and Bucky that they talk to.

“Hey! I know you. You’re The Captain! You missed the last three conventions, man. We were worried about you. What happened. And what are you wearing?”

The last sentence is said with a slow once over of Bucky’s body. Bucky is wearing loose fitting brown pants and a cream colored shirt that’s a size and a half too big. It’s wrinkled, and the sleeves are rolled up to the elbows. He’s got on a brown belt and brown striped suspenders that crisscross in the back. Steve starts to get defensive, but before he can move Bucky is stepping forward with a smooth smile on his face. “Trying something a bit new today, friend. No Captain here; just Steve Rogers and his best pal Bucky.” 

Steve nods his head once, curtly, trying not to glare. The man looks them both over again, then turns and walks away.

Bucky’s smoothed his hair down so the bangs are falling in his eyes, and Steve resists pushing them off his face. He’d always hated when Bucky had done that to him. Maybe that was more reason _to_ do it. Steve smiles at him. It is quite a trick that Bucky pulls off when he’s in character. The woman from Steve’s first convention was right; it’s not all about the costume. Sure, Bucky has lost a bit of bulk from his Winter Soldier days. He doesn’t look sharp and dangerous, ready to attack at any moment, but he’s still a big guy. He’d still intimidate anyone coming up to meet him in an alley. But here, now, peering up at Steve from behind hair that is clearly intended to taunt him, Bucky truly looks small. Steve wants to wrap him up and hold him and protect him forever. He wants to do all the things he’d have hated Bucky to do to him back then.

Steve is wearing a white t-shirt and dark pants, suspenders hanging down on his hips. Bucky styled his hair this time, perfectly slicked back away from his face. They’re both comfortable. Relaxed. These two boys had never seen a war.

“That didn’t seem very in character, Stevie,” Steve says, as they begin to walk again. “I can tell ya’, that guy sure got my blood boilin’. Think it would have been better for you to have punched him.”

“Nah,” Bucky says, taking Steve’s hand in his own. “Sure, if somebody was talkin’ to you like that, I’d be seein’ red. I’d take down six men all twice my size if they’d talked to you like that, ‘cause I’ve got absolutely no sense of self preservation and I’m an ornery little fuck…”

Steve glares at him. Bucky ignores it.

“But if they’re just talkin’ to me? That I can brush off. He didn’t mean nothin’.”

Steve thought about it for a moment, then realized that - as always - Bucky was right. He wrapped an arm around Bucky’s waist and pulled him close. “You’re a real terror, ain’t ya, dollface.” 

“I sure am. No idea why you put up with me.”

“I suppose I got a few ideas.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“I know you’re real pretty on your knees, sweetheart.”

Bucky snorted once, then squeezed Steve tighter. “And I don’t feel the need to be modest about it at all.”

“No reason to be modest when you can back it up.”

Bucky laughed at that, and Steve knew that - whatever he’d been through to get here, in this moment, out in the word with his arm wrapped around Bucky’s waist and Bucky’s arm wrapped right back around his - it had all been worth it. “Punk,” Steve said quietly, kissing Bucky on the forehead.

“Jerk,” Bucky replied back. 

“My jerk.”

“Your jerk. To the end of the line, pal.”

“To the end of the line.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that, my dear friends, is that. Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to read and comment. I hope you are having a safe and socially distant Halloween! XOXO ~Gwen

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! Please let us know what you think, or say hi to me (Gwen) on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/gwenpoolsaesthetic) and follow ProfoundAlpackaKitten on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/AlpacaKittens) because they are amazing and I love everything they do!!!!!!!!


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